UC-NRLF 


B    H    D77    121 


Bristow's  Editorials 

That  Caused  Such  a  Stir 
in  Kansas 


WAS  HE  RIGHT? 


Read  them,  note  the  date  when  pub- 
lished, and  observe  the  accuracy  with 
which  he  has  analyzed  the  trend  of 
governmental  affairs. 


ADAMS  BBOS   OO.  TOPEKA 


\-^ 


A  FRIEND'S  TRIBUTE 


When  Seuator  Bristow  was  in  Washington  last  May,  as  chairman  of 
the  Kansas  Public  Utilities  Commission,  to  oppose  the  15%,  or  $1,000,000 
a  day,  increase  in  interstate  freight  rates,  he  saw  the  menace  to  this  coun- 
try from  greed,  extravagance  and  graft. 

He  thought  some  one  ought  to  speak  out  against  it.  So  he  wrote  from 
there  a  signed  editorial  on  "The  Situation  in  Washington,"  which  appeared 
in  the  Salina  Journal.  He  was  at  once  denounced  vehemently  by  the  parti- 
sans of  the  President  and  the  metropolitan  press  as  unpatriotic  for  criticis- 
ing the  administration  while  the  country  was  at  war.  However,  he  never 
flinched  before  the  criticism  and  denunciation,  nor  hesitated  in  his  fight  for 
efficiency  and  honesty  in  the  public  service,  but  has  kept  it  up  to  the  present 
time.  He  has  maintained  from  the  beginuir.g  that  honesty  and  efficiency  in 
governmental  affairs  in  time  oi  war  is  as  essential  as  in  time  of  peace. 

Events  have  confirmed  every  statement  he  made.  A  number  of  the 
abuses  he  so  severely  cri'cicisad  iiave  bsen  ternedied  and  other  conditions  im- 
proved. Men,  who  condemned  him  then,  now  say  he  has  rendered  a  great 
public  service.  If  he  had  been  in  the  Senate  how  much  more  effectively  he 
could  have  fought  and  how  much  more  useful  he  could  have  been  to  the 
nation. 

This  country  now  imperatively  needs  men  of  his  discernment  and  cour- 
age in  public  life.  Kansas  can  render  a  great  service  to  the  nation  by 
sending  him  back  to  the  Senate. — Beloit  Gazette. 


Special  attention  is   called  to  the  last  two  editorials  in  this  pamphlet. 


"•    (The  signed  editorial  that  started  the 
Kansas  fight.) 


that  ai-e  to  m^ke 


billions  out- of  the 


THE    SITUATION     IN 
TON. 


WASHING- 


Washington,  May  23,  1917,  (by 
mail) — Never,  except  at  inauguration 
times,  have  the  hotels  of  Washington 
been  so  jammed  as  now.  Hundreds 
of  contractors,  salesmen,  and  manu- 
facturers besiege  the  departments 
and  special  boards  in  desperate  ef- 
forts to  get  their  share,  and  more, 
of  the  seven  billions  which  congress 
has  authorized  to  be  spent  in  carry- 
ing on  the  war.  There  are  hundreds 
of  lobbyists  Vrho  are  for  the  war  and 
high  taxes,  but  who  want  to  get  out 
of  paying  their  share,  or  as  much 
of  it  as  they  can.  There  are  hun- 
dreds of  railway  officials  and  experts 
who  want  to  drive  through  a  fifteen 
per  cent  increase  in  freight  rates  so 
as  to  get  their  share  of  loot  in  this* 
period  of  grab  and  plunder.  Hun- 
dreds of  others  are  applicants  for 
civil  appointments  or  commissions  in 
the  army  or  navy.  Altogether  they 
make  up  a  grand  rush  of  visiting 
patriots,  heroes,  economists,  states- 
men, experts,  grafters,  and  all  man- 
ner of  men  and  women. 

This  assemblage  is  a  fitting  con- 
comitant of  war.  Cupidity  and  greed, 
gloating  appetites  for  pillage  and 
plunder,  vain  desire  for  pomp  and 
gold-laced  parade,  unrestrained  con- 
viviality, which  arouses  the  latent 
passion  for  rapine  and  destruction 
are  there.  Behind  it  all,  in  the  dimly 
concealed  background  are  the  giant 
financial  and  industrial   organizations 


war.  Mr.,  V/ils^n;  in  ,sjud.\ea  ^Ji^i^ 'glee- 
ful phrases  proclaims  tills  ^  holy 
cause.  Mr.  McAdoo,  secretary  of 
the  treasury,  flies  about  the  country 
making  frantic  appeals  to  the  peo- 
ple to  lend  their  money  to  the  gov- 
ernment at  31/^  per  cent,  when  they 
hesitate  because  they  need  all  the 
return  on  it  they  can  get  in  order 
to  procure  the  necessities  of  life  and 
pay  the  excessive  taxes  due  to  the 
war. 

What  will  happen  when  a  full  real- 
ization of  the  nature  of  these  pro- 
ceedings comes  to  the  average  citi- 
zen, we  do  not  know;  but  we  con- 
fidently predict  that  some  vain  and 
arrogant  statesmen  who  knowingly 
or  unknowingly  have  been  the  pliant 
tools  of  unrestrained  avarice  will  un- 
derstand what  has  happened  to  them. 
JOSEPH   L.   BRISTOW. 


SATURDAY,  JUNE  2,  1917. 


SUGGESTIONS    TO    MR.    HELVER- 
ING. 


Mr.  Guy  Helvering  has  telegraphed 
the  governor,  demanding  that  the  edi- 
tor of  this  paper  be  removed  from 
the  chairmanship  of  the  public  utili- 
ties commission,  because  of  certain 
observations  he  made  as  to  the  pres- 
ent situation  in  Washington.  From 
Mr.  Helvering's  somewhat  indefinite 
telegram  we  infer  that  his  objection 
was  directed  to  the  following  state- 
ment that  appeared  in  the  Journal 
over    our    signature: 


"H'u  R  d'r  e  (is  cf  contractors, 
fale^n^ert,  arid  manufacturers  be- 
siege the  departmsnts  and  spe- 
cial boards  in  desperate  efforts 
to  get  their  share,  and  more,  of 
the  seven  billions  which  con- 
gress has  authorized  to  be  spent 
in  carrying  on  the  war.  There 
are  hundreds  of  lobbyists  who 
are  for  the  war  and  high  taxes, 
but  who,  want  to  get  out  of  pay- 
ing their  share,  or  as  much  of  it 
as  they  can.  There  are  hun- 
dreds of  railway  officials  and  ex- 
perts who  want  to  drive  through 
a  fifteen  per  cent  increase  in 
freight  rates  so  as  to  get  their 
share  of  loot  in  this  period  of 
grab  and  plunder.  Hundreds  of 
others  are  applicants  for  civil 
appointments  or  commissions  in 
the  army  or  navy.  Altogether 
they  make  up  a  grand  rush  of 
visiting  patriots,  heroes,  econo- 
mists, statesmen,  experts,  graft- 
ers, and  all  manner  of  men  and 
women. 

This  assemblage  is  a  fitting 
concomitant  of  war.  Cupidity 
and  greed,  gloating  appetites  for 
pillage  and  plunder,  vain  desire 
for  pomp  and  gold-laced  pa- 
rade, unrestrained  conviviality, 
which  arouses  the  latent  passion 
for  rapine  and  destruction  are 
there.  Behind  it  all,  in  the  dimly 
concealed  background  are  the 
giant  financial  and  industrial  or- 
ganizations that  are  to  make  bil- 
lions out  of  the  war." 
Now  my  dear  Mr.  Helvering,  for 
your   information   we   beg   to   advise 


you   that  those   statements   are    true. 

You  know,  or  ought  to  know,  thai 
it  is  common  rumor  in  Washingtpn 
that  congressmen  and  other  influen- 
tial men  have  obtained  commission': 
in  the  army  for  relatives,  said  com-l 
missions  have  been  dated  before  the 
parties  were  sent  to  the  training 
camps  or  had  taken  any  examination. 
This  was  done,  so  we  were  informed, 
that  said  favorites  might  have  sen- 
iority in  rank  over  thousands  of 
other  worthy  young  men  who  wwe  in 
the  camps  working  honestly  for  the 
rank  to  which  they  aspired,  believ- 
ing that  they  would  be  ^ven  a 
square  deal  if  they  earned  it. 

You  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
at  hearings  of  the  house  and  senate 
committees  charges  have  been  made 
that  contractors  are  being  paid  by  a 
per  cent  of  the  cost  for  construction 
of  army  cantonments.  That  these 
contractors  were  paying  $7  a  day  for 
labor  that  could  be  obtained  for  $4. 
That  they  were  paying  excessive 
prices  for  materials,  thereby  inflating 
the  cost  of  the  work,  so  as  to  get  a 
larger  commission  for  construction. 

You  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
it  is  openly  alleged  that  such  methods 
and  blunderings  have  resulted  in  an 
increase  in  the  estimated  cost  of  the 
construction  of  these  cantonments 
from  75  millions  of  dollars  to  150 
millions. 

You  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
the  lobby  of  the  munition  makers 
was  strong  enough  with  the  senate 
committee  on  finance  to  have  the  tax 
on  munitions  removed  from  the  reve- 
nue bill  and  a  tax  on  tea,  coffee  and 


other  articles  of  universal  consump- 
tion substituted  therefor. 

You  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
the  lobbies  that  now  swarm  the  cor- 
ridors of  the  capitol  have  induced 
the  senate  committee  on  finance  to 
remove  from  the  revenue  bill  the  in- 
creased surtax  on  excessive  inxiomes 
of  more  than  $40,000  per  annum,  that 
was  put  in  the  bill  on  the  floor  of 
the  house,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Lenroot 
of  Wisconsin,  and  that  as  the  bill  now 
stands  the  tax  on  great  incomes 
will  not  be  half  so  much  as  that  by 
Great  Britain. 

You  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
under  pressure  from  innumerable 
lobbyists  this  revenue  bill  is  being 
so  shaped  that  great  corporations 
with  watered  stock  will  practically 
escape  taxation,  and  that  large  in- 
dustrial concerns  are  going  to  be 
permitted  to  pass  the  tax  on  to  the 
consumer. 

;,  You  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
there  is  now  a  powerful  lobby  of 
metropolitan  newspapers  and  maga- 
zine publishers  in  Washington  de- 
manding that  the  increased  postage 
rates  recommended  by  the  postmas- 
ter general  be  not  adopted,  but  that 
a  gross  tax  on  advertising  be  sub- 
stituted therefor,  and  that  these  lob- 
byists state  that  they  want  that  kind 
of  a  tax  because  they  can  pass  it  on 
to  the  advertiser  and  thereby  get 
out  of  paying  it  themselves,  while 
'they  could  not  pass  on  the  postal  tax. 

You  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
the  amount  of  money  to  be  raised 
by  taxes  on  wealth  and  income  is  to 


be  reduced  and  the  amount  obtained 
by  the  sale  of  bonds  increased,  so 
that  the  poor  man  will  not  only  carry 
the  burden  of  this  war  on  the  field  of 
battle,  but  also  carry  the  load  of 
taxes  for  years  to  come. 

You  do  know  that  thousands  of 
men  have  flocked  to  Washington  and 
are  using  every  device  known  to  the 
the  ingenuity  of  man  to  obtain  and 
are  obtaining  soft  berths  for  them- 
selves, their  relatives  and  political 
friends.  Yet  because  the  editor  of 
this  paper  called  the  attention  of 
the  country  and  the  administration  to 
this  condition,  you  pronounce  him  a 
traitor.  Apparently  instead  of  try- 
ing to  correct  the  evils,  you  seek  to 
hide  them.  However,  your  blatant 
babblings  will  not  fool  the  people 
long,  if  at  all. 

I  further  beg  leave  to  suggest  to 
you  that  men  will  not  be  deterred  by 
vituperation  and  abuse  from  stating 
the  truth  about  the  manner  of  con- 
ducting the  public  business.  This 
is  a  country  where  free  speech  has 
not  yet  been  denied.  The  facts  as 
to  the  expenditure  of  the  seven  bil- 
lions of  dollars  will  be  known,  and 
further,  Mr.  Helvering,  I  beg  to  ad- 
vise you  that,  the  traitor  is  not  he 
who  exposes  graft,  but  the  one  who 
covers  it  up.  You  may  think  it 
patriotic  to  draft  the  youth  of  this 
land  to  die  in  the  trenches  of  Europe 
and  to  permit  the  bloated  munition 
maker  to  escape  proper  taxation  and 
keep  his  blood-stained  gold,  but  we 
do  not.  And  regardless  of  the  brazen 
effrontery    with    which    you    seek    to 


intimidate  men  from  the  expression 
of  facts,  we  propose  to  continue  to 
portray  the  conditions  as  they  are. 
Not  as  a  traitor  to  his  country,  but 
as  a  patriot  who  has  contempt  for 
a  congressional  trimmer  and  hatred 
for   a   public   thief. 


TUESDAY,  MAY  22,   1917. 


SHOULD    NOT    OBJECT    TO    OUR 
SHARE  OF  THE  TAX. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  certain  news- 
paper organizations  of  the  country 
are  making  such  a  determined  effort 
to  prevent  an  increase  in  the  rates 
of  postage  on  second-class  matter. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  news- 
papers should  not  bear  their  share  of 
the  war  burden.  If  there  is  any 
change  made  in  the  postage  schedule 
it  should  be  in  a  reduction  of  the 
letter  postage  from  three  to  two 
cents,  because  we  must  admit  that 
our  government  is  carrying  our  pa- 
pers at  less  than  cost  of  transporta- 
tion, while  it  is  making  a  profit  on 
the  handling  of  letters  at  two  cents 
per   ounce. 

One  of  the  strange  things  to  us  is 
that  some  of  the  newspapers  that 
have  b^en  loudest  in  their  demands 
for  war  and  heavy  appropriations  are 
now  fighting  vigorously  to  prevent 
any  increase  in  their  postal  tax. 

The  Journal  does  not  relish  paying 
more  than  double  the  postage  it  has 
been  paying.  It  amounts  to  a  heavy 
tax;  but  we  can  see  no  reason  why 
our  business  should  not  be  treated, 
so  far  as  taxation  is  concerned,  as 
other  business  is.  Of  course,  it  takes 
just  that  much  out  of  our  profits,  but 
the  business  of  the  country  has  to 
sacrifice  profits  to  pay  these  war 
bills.  Our  protest  has  been  against 
creating   the  bills. 

They  were  not  created  with  our 
consent  or  approval,  but  they  have 
been  created.  The  people  of  the 
United  States  are  legally  and  moral- 
ly bound  to  pay  them,  and  it  is  far 
more  honorable  for  this  generation  to 
shoulder   the   burden   than   to   pass   it 


on  to  our  children.  They  will  have 
burdens  of  their  own,  when  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  human  affairs  rest 
upon  their  shoulders.  So  the  pub- 
lishers' lobby  that  is  in  Washington 
to  fight  the  increase  of  second-class 
rates  should  come  home. 

FRIDAY,   MAY  25,  1917. 


MORE  HUMOR.  i 

General  Pershing  has  been  selected 
to  lead  the  first  expedition  to  France, 
because  of  his  brilliant  achievements 
in  Mexico,  so  we  are  informed  by  dis- 
patches sent  out  from  Washington. 

We  do  not  reflect  upon  General 
Pershing  as  an  able  military  officer. 
He  stands  well  in  the  army,  and  so 
far  as  we  have  ever  heard  has  always 
discharged  his  duties  ably  and  patri- 
otically. He  is  one  of  our  best  men. 
But  the  amusing  part  of  the  dispatch 
is  that  he  is  to  go  to  Europe  because 
of  his  meritorious  service  in  Mexico. 

We  suppose  that  the  merit  con- 
sisted in  obeying  the  orders  of  the 
Washington  administration.  He  was 
sent  out  with  instructions  to  capture 
Villa  "dead  or  alive."  After  he  had 
gotten  some  150  or  more  miles  into 
Mexico,  giving  some  prospects  of 
breaking  up  the  band,  Pershing  was 
ordered  to  stop  and  there  he  was 
held  for  month  after  month  in  th« 
enemy's  country,  forbidden  to  execute 
any  military  movements  or  to  carry 
out  his  former  orders.  He  experi- 
enced a  long  period  of  "watchful 
waiting"  and  then  was  ordered  to 
return. 

The  patience  with  which  he  obeyed 
orders  to  go  to  Mexico  and  do  noth- 
ing and  come  back  again  are  very 
creditable  to  him,  far  more  so  than 
to  the  Washington  administration 
that  gave  the  orders,  and  we  trust 
that  his  experiences  in  Europe  on 
this  second  mission  will  be  less 
humiliating  to  him,  the  army  and 
the  country  than  were  his  experience? 
in  Mexico. 


WEDNESDAY,   JUNE    6,   1917. 


MAKING  MONEY  FROM  WAR. 

Mr.  Arthur  Sears  Henning,  Wash- 
ington correspondent  of  the  Ghicagc 
Tribune  in  Saturday's  issue,  said: 
"Recent  hearings  in  the  house 


and  senate  appropriation  com- 
mittees have  thrown  some  light 
on  the  tremendous  increase  in  the 
estimated  cost  of  building  the 
cantonment  camps.  In  some 
cases  it  has  been  charged  that 
contractors  have  been  paying  two 
or  three  times  as  much  for  their 
material  as  necessary,  because 
their  profits  are  to  be  based  on 
a  percentage  of  the  total  cost  of 
their  work. 

"Furthermore,  it  has  been 
charged  that  contractors  have 
paid  as  much  as  $7  a  day  for 
labor  which  they  could  get  for 
$4  a  day,  the  cost  of  their  work, 
and  consequently  their  profits, 
being  increased." 

Mr,  Henning  should  be  careful. 
The  publication  of  such  charges  may 
cause  him  to  be  arrested  for  treason. 
Does  not  Mr.  Henning  know  that  to 
intimate  that  there  is  graft,  or  to 
publish  statements  that  would  ques- 
tion the  infallibility  of  the  admin- 
istration is  to  commit  a  felony,  and 
that  rank  partisans  would  have  free 
speech  and  freedom  of  the  press  both 
suppressed. 

When  the  embalmed  beef  contro- 
versy broke  out  during  the  Spanish- 
American  war  and  the  scandal  relat- 
ing to  it  was  exposed,  nobody  was 
accused  of  treason,  and  the  papers 
that  now  demand  the  execution  of 
all  critics  of  the  administration,  were 
the-  foremost  in  the  attacks  on  the 
McKinley  administration.  McKinley 
accepted  the  criticism,  corrected  the 
abuse,  and  did  not  send  district  at- 
torneys and  United  States  marshals 
over  the  country  to  arrest,  and 
threaten  with  arrest,  those  who  had 
criticised  his  administration.  He  did 
not  demand  censorship  of  the  press, 
or  ask  that  he  be  given  dictatorial 
power  over  the  lives  and  fortunes 
of  his  opponents. 

But  not  so  now.  Any  man  or 
woman  who  demands  a  square  deal 
for  the  government  and  the  people, 
or  denounces  duplicity,  vaccillating 
weakness  or  graft  is  branded  a  hire- 
ling of  Germany.  But  the  attorney 
general  and  his  district  attorneys  and 
marshals  will  find  that  this  is  yet  a 
free  country,  though  its  liberties  are 
threatened.  That  there  are  men  and 
women  who  still  have  the  courage  to 
expose  dishonesty  in  the  public  serv- 


ice. That  they  will  not  be  deterred 
by  threats  and  abuse,  and  that  time 
will  demonstrate  that  they  are  true 
patriots,  and  not  the  plunderers  who 
are  coining  millions  out  of  the  blood 
of  their  fellow  men, 

WEDNESDAY,  JUNE   13,   19177" 

A  PERTINENT  ILLUSTRATION. 

The  report  of  the  conference  com- 
mittee on  the  war  budget  was  re- 
jected by  the  house  of  representatives 
and  sent  back  to  the  committee  for 
revision.  One  of  the  items  that 
brought  the  severest  criticism  was  the 
appropriation  of  $1,400,000  to  pur- 
chase the  old  Jamestown  exposition 
site  as  a  naval  training  station. 

An  item  of  $3,000,000  was  incor- 
porated by  the  senate  committee  into 
the  bill  to  pay  for  this  site.  This 
was  done,  so  press  dispatches  indi- 
cate, upon  the  request  of  Senator 
Martin  of  Virginia,  chairman  of  the 
committee  on  appropriations  of  the 
senate.  It  was  reduced  in  the  con- 
ference between  the  two  houses  from 
$3,000,000  to  $1,400,000. 

When  the  conference  committee  re- 
port was  before  the  house,  this  item 
was  attacked  by  Representative  Kel- 
ley  of  Michigan,  It  appears  that  the 
buildings  on  this  site  had  been  pur- 
chased at  sheriff's  sale  years  ago  for 
$250,000  and  many  of  them  were 
practically  junk,  yet  these  old  build- 
ings were  included  in  the  appro- 
priation bill  at  $600,000.  Mr,  Kelley 
in   discussing   the   matter,   said: 

"This  proposition  is  not  a  new  one. 
It  has  been  before  congress  for  ten 
years  and  was  never  looked  upon 
with  favor.  The  present  chairman 
of  the  naval  affairs  committee  never 
believed   the   price   was    a   fair   one." 

Representative  Bathrick  of  Ohio,  a 
democrat,   speaking  of  the  bill,  said: 

"This  thing  is  full  of  graft,  and  the 
people  ought  to  know  about  it." 

Representative  Longworth  of  Ohio, 
developed  the  fact  that  many  of  the 
buildings  for  which  the  $600,000  was 
to  be  paid,  had  not  been  occupied  for 
ten  years,  and,  therefore,  were  prac- 
tically worthless. 

Mr.  Kelley  declared  that  the  price 
of  $1,400,000  for  the  whole  tract  was 
extravagant  and  ought  not  to  be 
paid.  He  stated  that  he  had  been 
all    over    the    ground    and    that    the 


water  front  site  was  a  shoal  for  1,200 
feet  out,  having  a  depth  of  water  of 
only  from  one  to  three  feet. 

This  is  an  illustration  of  what  is 
going  on  in  Washington.  We  are 
glad  to  know  that  some  members  of 
congress  are  giving  attention  to  their 
obligations  to  their  constituents  and 
trying  to  stop  a  few  of  the  grafts. 
We  are  also  pleased  to  note  that 
some  democratic  congressmen  have 
the  courage  to  stand  out  against  tlic 
loot. 

Let  me  inquire,  where  was  the 
Hon.  Guy  Helvering  when  the  discus- 
sion of  this  bill  was  before  the 
house  of  representatives.  Was  he 
too  busily  engaged  in  formulating 
advice  to  the  governor  of  this  state 
as  to  how  he  should  run  the  affairs 
of  his  office  to  give  attention  to  his 
own  business?  Or  has  he  any  ob- 
jections to  such  items  as  this  going 
into  the  apprcpriation  bills  in  this 
period  of  "grab  and  plunder?" 

Probably  he  thinks  it  is  all  right 
to  permit  patriotic  Virginians  to 
obtain  such  choice  and  juicy  plums  of 
graft  from  the  national  treasury  in 
these  times  of  war.  Why  did  not  he 
and  his  brilliant  colleague,  the  Hon. 
Dudley  Doolittle  rise  in  their  might 
and  denounce  as  traitors  Bathrick, 
Kelley,  Lenroot  and  others  for  de- 
claring that  the  bill  was  full  of 
graft? 

MONDAY,  JUNE  18,  1917. 

WHY   NOT   GET  TOGETHER? 

The  Kansas  City  Star  enquires, 
"What  is  the  matter  with  Bristow?" 
Our  answer  is,  "Nothing."  He  is  the 
same  today  he  has  been  heretofore. 
It  happens  that  his  opinions  and 
those  of  the  Star  on  some  subjects  of 
current  interest  differ.  This  occurs 
occasionally.  At  such  times  Bristow 
wonders  what  is  the  matter  with  the 
Star.  The  Star  asks,  "What  is  the 
matter  with  Bristow?" 

The  matter  is  that  they  hold  dif- 
ferent opinions.  That  is  all.  Bris- 
tow does  not  believe  that  Wilson, 
having  acquiesced  in  the  invasion 
of  Belsfium  and  having  declared  that 
the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  was  not 
a  hostile  act,  had  any  other  sufficient 
cause  for  a  declaration  of  war.  The 
Star  evidently  believes  he  had. 

Bristow  believes  that  after  we  were 


in  the  war  the  army  should  have  been 
raised  by  the  volunteer  system.  The 
Star   was   for   conscription. 

Bristow  does  not  believe  that  we 
should  draft  millions  of  the  flower  of 
American  youth  and  send  them  into 
the  vortex  of  the  European  hell,  to 
be  torn  and  mutilated  in  the  awful 
carnage  that  prevails  there.  The 
Star   evidently  believes   we   should. 

However,  the  war  is  here  and  the 
draft  has  been  ordered.  Those  sub- 
jects, therefore,  are  water  that  has 
already  gone  over  the  dam.  Now 
for  the  nub  of  this  article. 

War  is  upon  us  and,  as  is  always 
the  case,  cupidity  and  insatiable 
avarice  are  getting  in  their  work. 
Graft  is  manifest  in  many  places. 
The  army  camps  are  costing  twice 
what  they  ought.  This  is  due  to 
unwarranted  extravagance  and  in 
some  places  to  open  corruption. 

The  administration  is  urging  the 
people  to  economize  in  their  personal 
affairs  and  contribute  liberally  to 
every  governmental  activity.  The 
people  are  responding  beyond  its  ex- 
pectations. Yet,  at  the  same  time 
there  is  the  wildest  profligacy  in 
governmental  expenditures.  Property 
is  being  sold  to  the  government  at 
two  and  three  times  what  it  is  worth. 
Last  week  congress  authorized  the 
purchase  of  the  old  Jamestown  ex- 
position grounds  at  $1,200,000.  These 
temporary  buildings  were  sold  ten 
years  ago  for  $250,000  and  many  of 
them  have  stood  idle  since.  This  old 
ruin  is  not  worth  $200,000.  Many 
similar  transactions  are  occuring. 

The  tax  bill  is  being  shaped  to 
favor  the  rich  and  oppress  the  poor. 
Ti-ust  magnates  are  supervising  gov- 
ernment purchases  and  selling  prod- 
ucts of  their  own  factories  to  it  &• 
prices  which  they  fix  themselves. 

They  claim  great  credit  for  work- 
ing for  the  people  for  nothing  and 
say  they  are  selling  their  goods  to 
the  government  at  less  than  the  mar- 
ket price.  The  fact  is  they  fix  the 
market  price  at  what  they  please 
because  they  completely  control  the 
product.  The  market  price  is  of  no 
consequence  since  they  name  it  and 
can  collect  from  the  government 
whatever  they  choose  to  charge. 

This  is  illustrated  by  the  case  of 
the  president  of  the  aluminum  trust, 
who    is    a    member    of    the    advisory 


council.  He  has  sold  to  the  govern- 
ment a  million  canteens,  made  at  his 
own  factory  and  claims  great  credit 
because  he  has  charged  less  than  the 
market  price.  Yet,  he  himself,  fixes 
the  market  price  for  aluminum  the 
world  over,  for  he  has,  admittedly, 
a  world-wide  trust  on  that  metal. 
This  is  but  one  illustration.  The  cop- 
per trust  and  the  steel  trust  are 
doing  the  same  thing.  Now,  why 
does  not  the  Star  denounce  this  in- 
sidious and  destructive  graft?  It  has 
done   so   before.     Why   not   now? 

We  believe  it  is  patriotism,  not 
treason,  to  destroy  these  evils  by 
ruthless  exposure.  They  are  as  dan- 
gerous to  the  life  of  this  republic  as 
cancer  is  to  the  human  body.  They 
are  as  infamous  and  as  destructive  to 
the  welfare  of  the  nation  in  times 
of  war  as  in  times  of  peace.  There- 
fore, while  the  Star  is  asking  what 
is  the  matter  with  Bristow,  he  is 
asking  what  is  the  matter  with  the 
Star.  Why  not  come  in  and  help 
us  fight  for  the  preservation  of 
national  integrity  and  the  protection 
of  national  honor? 

FRIDAY,  JUNE  22,  1917. 

A    MEASURE   OF   GREAT   CON- 
CERN. 

We  have  not  been  favored  with  a 
copy  of  the  present  food  bill  which 
is  now  before  congress  and  the  pas- 
sage of  which  is  being  urged  by  the 
administration,  so  we  are  unable  to 
pass  judgment  upon  the  wisdom  of 
its  provisions. 

We  are  somewhat  apprehensive 
when  we  note  that  Representative 
Haugen  of  Iowa,  a  sturdy  old  Nor- 
wegian statesman  is  bitterly  oppos- 
ing the  measure  because  he  thinks 
it  is  aimed  at  the  producing  agri- 
cultural class;  and  when  Senator 
Gore  of  Oklahoma,  Senator  Vardaman 
of  Mississippi  and  a  few  other  sena- 
tors whose  devotion  to  the  pTiblic  in- 
terests cannot  be  questioned  are  bit- 
terly fighting  the  measure. 

However,  this  must  be  said  that 
any  measure  that  undertakes  to  im- 
pose a  burden  on  the  producers  of 
food  products  will  be  a  grave  injus- 
tice to  the  agricultural  interests  of 
our  country,  and  a  serious  injury 
to  the  welfare  of  the  American 
people. 


It  is  of  the  highest  importance  no'W 
to  encourage  food  production.  How- 
ever anv  legislation  that  seeks  to 
curb  the  greed  and  penalize  the  crim- 
inality practiced  bj'  the  dealers  in 
food  products  will  meet  with  a  hearty 
response  from  every  honest  Ameri- 
can. Large  fortunes  are  not  made 
by  the  producers  of  the  food  products. 
They  are  made  by  dealers  in  food 
products.  We  reproduce  an  article 
this  week  from  the  Wichita  Eagle 
showing  that  potatoes  were  selling 
within  100  miles  of  Wichita,  in  Okla- 
homa, at  $1.50  per  bushel  at  the  rail- 
way station;  that  the  freight  rate  to 
Wichita  was  18  cents;  and  that  the 
poatoes  were  selling  in  Wichita  for 
over  $4  per  bushel;  that  there  was 
somewhere  added  to  the  price  of 
these  potatoes  $2.50  per  bushel  be- 
tween the  freight  yard  and  the 
consumer   in   Wichita. 

This  is  alleged  to  be  substantially 
the  case  in  respect  to  other  cities. 
Great  fortunes  have  been  made  in 
the  last  year  by  speculators  in  food. 
Cold  storage  plant  combinations  have 
bought  up  and  monopolized  the  avail- 
able supply  and  then  charged  the 
people  excessive  profits. 

Some  years  ago  we  created  a  trad^ 
commission  and  gave  it  powers,  sup- 
posedly, to  correct  such  gross  abuses 
in  commercial  and  industrial  affairs, 
but  it  seems  to  have  been  without 
avail.  What  this  trade  commission, 
composed  supposedly  of  experts  who 
are  paid  a  salary  of  $10,000  each  per 
year  and  given  large  resources  to 
prosecute  their  investigations,  a 
doing,  we  are  unable  to  say. 

It  endeavored  to  protect  the  news- 
papers against  the  print  paper  trust, 
but  has  thrown  up  its  hands  and  said 
in  substance,  "We  cannot  help  you. 
Take  care  of  yourselves."  The  de- 
partment of  justice  has  indictments 
against  the  promoters  of  the  print 
paper  trust,  but  they  are  dragging 
along  the  course  which  suits  always 
take  when  millionaires  are  being 
prosecuted.  ' 

If  some  poor  wretch  had  broken 
into  a  grocery  'store  and  stolen  a  sack 
of  flour,  he  would  have  been  on  the 
road  to  the  penitentiary  ere  this; 
but  these  men,  who  robbed  the  news- 
papers of  the  United  States  of  ap- 
proximately one  hundred  million  dol- 
lars    last     year,     will     probably     not 


10 


be  tried,  or  if  tried,  never  convicted. 
They  still  are  maintaining  their  un- 
lawful combination  and  reaping  the 
profits   from    their   monopoly. 

We  sincerely  trust  that  congress 
will  work  out  a  wise  law  so  that  the 
food  speculator,  who  is  coining  his 
millions  out  of  the  necessities  of  the 
people  and  then  frequently  with 
grandiloquent  generosity  contributing 
to  the  Red  Cross  or  buying  large 
quantities  of  government  bonds  with 
patriotic  fervor,  will  receive  the  pun- 
ishment which  his  infamous  practices 
merit. 

MONDAY.  JUNE  25,  1917.       ~ 

LOCK   THE   DOOR   AFTER   THE 
HORSE  IS  STOLEN. 

The  Kansas  City  Star  in  further 
commenting  on  our  editorial  of  Mon- 
day, June  18,  says  that  there  doubt- 
less is  graft,  but  that  the  Star  has 
a  "weather  eye"  on  Washington  and 
at  the  proper  time  when  graft  ap- 
pears will  go  after  it. 

The  substance  of  the  Star's  edi- 
torial is  that  after  the  grafters  have 
gotten  their  money,  robbed  the  gov- 
ernment and  plundered  the  treasury, 
the  Star  will  go  after  them,  which, 
of  course,  is  entirely  satisfactory  to 
the  grafter.  All  he  wants  is  to  be 
let  alone  now,  while  he  is  getting  the 
money.  After  that  he  can  stand  all 
of  the  abuse  and  vituperation  that 
can  be  heaped  upon  him. 

We  remember  some  eight  years 
ago  the  editor  of  this  paper  made 
a  speech  at  Winfield,  Kan.,  in  which 
he  denounced  Senator  Aldrich's  at- 
titude on  the  tariff  bill  and  illustrated 
it  by  the  duty  on  manufactured  rub- 
ber, which  was  controlled  by  a  trust 
and  some  members  of  Senator  Al- 
drich's family  had  stock  in  the  trust. 
The  duty  had  been  increased,  as  we 
remem.ber  about  ten  per  cent  when  it 
seemed  to  us  that  there  should  have 
been  a  reduction  instead  of  an  in- 
crease. 

The  Star  printed  several  columii? 
of  our  speech  and  commented  in  thci 
most  flattering  manner  on  the  cour- 
age ?.nd  ability  with  which  we  had 
uncovered  the  rottenness  of  the  tariff 
bill.  But  criticism  by  us  of  a  more 
important  character  it  now  condemn.'. 

A  letter  from  a  friend  in  Washing- 
ton  says  that  we  have  criticised  too 


soon;  that  we  are  putting  the 
grafters  on  notice  that  there  may  be 
trouble  ahead,  and  they  are  conceal- 
ing their  tracks,  while  if  they  had 
been  let  alone  they  would  have  over- 
played their  hands. 

Continuing,  this  gentleman,  wao 
has  been  connected  with  the  United 
States  government  for  fifteen  year? 
and  whose  standing  with  all  whc 
know  him  is  the  highest,  says: 

"The  greediest  and  cheapest  set 
of  grafters  that  have  ever  disgraced 
this  country  come  from  the  souttt. 
Do  not  expose  them  too  early.  Let 
them  play  their  game  and  when  they 
get  a  sufficient  number. of  cards  on 
the  table  so  that  they  cannot  sneak 
them  away,  then  we  can  go  to  it." 

We  may  have  been  premature  and 
inexpedient.  When  in  Washington 
we  saw  the  whole  panorama  and  un- 
dertook in  a  modest  way  to  describe 
it.  As  a  reward  for  our  efforts  to 
protect  the  people  of  this  country 
from  a  shameless  lot  of  crooks,  we 
have  been  denounced  from  one  end  of 
the  nation  to  the  other  as  a  traitor 
and   guilty   of  treason. 

After  these  grafters  have  obtained 
their  loot  and  are  complacently  en- 
joying their  plunder  then  the  Star 
will  turn  on  them  with  a  viciousness 
that  will  be  highly  commendable  and 
by  that  time  the  public  probably  will 
be  ready  to  join  in  the  attack;  but 
the  Journal  prefers  to  'try  to  "prevent 
the  robbery  than  denounce  it  after 
it  is  over. 

When  Aldrich  was  framing  the 
tariff  bill,  the  Republicans  who 
against  their  own  party  organization 
were  demanding  a  square  deal  for 
every  interest,  the  public  as  well, 
had  the  hearty  support  of. the  Star; 
but  today  when  we  demand  honesty 
in  the  administration  of  affairs,  the 
Star  says  hold  on,  we  are  at  war;  the 
first  thing  to  do  is  to  get  the  Ger- 
mans, and  then  we  will  get  the 
crooks. 

If.  it  was  wrong  for  Senator  Al- 
drich to  increase  the  duty  on  rubber 
when  it  was  not  needed  and  v.'hen 
some  of  his  family  had  stock  in  the 
rubber  trust,  is  it  not  wrong  for  the 
present  head  of  the  aluminum  trust 
to  be  appointed  as  president  of  an 
advisory  board  which  passes  upon 
the  purchases  of  aluminum  by  the 
United   States   government   and    fixe? 


11 


the  price  which  the  government  shall 
pay? 

Is  it  also  not  dangerous  for  B. 
M.  Baruch,  who  confessed  to  making 
some  $476,000  on  the  turn  of  the 
market  due  to  the  leak  of  President 
Wilson's  message  to  be  given  the  pur- 
chasing of  all  copper? 

Is  it  right  that  the  leading  muni- 
tion manufacturers  of  the  country 
should  constitute  a  munition  standard 
board  ? 

Is  it  right  that  Edgar  Palmer, 
president  of  the  New  Jersey  Zinc 
Company  should  be>  a  member  of  the 
sub-committee  on  zinc  purchases  by 
the  federal   government? 

Does  the  Star  think  it  good  admin- 
istration to  appoint  the  heads  of 
great  manufacturing  concerns  to 
supervise  the  purchases  made  by  the 
government  from  those  concerns? 

We  do  not. 

THURSDAY,  JUNE  28,  1917. 

TAKE  THE   STEEL   PLANT. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  just  criti- 
cism being  made  against  the  system 
of  distribution  of  food  products  of 
the  country.  The  average  prices 
which  the  producers  received  last 
year  were  not  abnormally  high,  but 
the  average  prices  which  the  con- 
sumers had  to  pay  were  very  exces- 
sive. This  has  led  to  a  practically 
unanimous  demand  for  legislation 
giving  the  government  authority  to 
regulate  the  distribution  of  these  food 
products;  but  the  speculation  in  food, 
products,  so  far  as  individual  profits 
go,  is  small  as  compared  with  the 
enormous  profits  made  by  the  steel 
trust. 

■  The  New  York  Evening  Post  of 
June  18th,  in  discussing  the  tax  bill, 
had  the  following: 

"The  Steel  Corporation  earned 
$104,000,000  in  1911,  $108,000,000  in 
1912,  and  $137,000,000  in  1913  making 
an  average  of  $116,000,000.  In  the 
first  quarter  of  this  year  the  corpora- 
tion earned  $133,000,000,  or  at  a  rate 
of  $452,000,000  a  year.  It  is  now 
estimated  to  be  earning  at  a  rate  of 
$520,000,000.  Take  the  conservative 
figure  of  $464,000,000,  or  an  increase 
of  300  per  cent  over  the  three-year 
average.  Ignoring  the  phrase,  "and 
the  excess  of  last  year,"  these  earn- 
ings  bear   a   tax   of   75   per   cent   on 


the  excess;  the  tax  would  be  $261,- 
000,000,  leaving  profits  at  $203,- 
000,000." 

In  1910  an  investigation  was 
made  as  to  the  profits  in  steel.  Steel 
plates  were  then  selling  at  $31  a  ton, 
and  it  appeared  from  this  investiga- 
tion that  the  Steel  corporation  was 
making  a  profit  of  more  than  ten 
per  cent  on  its  common  stock  at  that 
time,  and  when  it  is  remembered  that 
all  of  the  common  stock  of  the  steel 
trust  is  watered  stock  and  repre- 
sents not  a  dollar  of  original  invest- 
ment, it  looks  as  though  such  a  profit' 
ought  to  satisfy  the  greed  of  any 
human  being. 

If  any  cd^cern  can  float  hundreds 
of  millions  of  stock  that  represents 
no  invested  capital  and  make  more 
than  ten  per  cent  per  annum  on  such 
stock,  it  certainly  ought  to  be  satis- 
fied. But  not  so  with  the  steel  trust. 
It  appears  that  at  $31  a  ton,  its  earn- 
ings were  more  than  $100,000,000  a 
year.  It  pushed  the  price  up  step  by 
step  when  the  war  came  on  until  its 
earnings  became  more  than  $500,000,- 
000  a  year. 

It  was  during  this  period  that  it 
was  exhausting  the  resources  of  \.he 
allies.  The  nations  of  Europe  were 
taxing  their  people  to  the  limit  of 
their  endurance  and  pouring  a  golden 
stream  into  the  coffers  of  these  con- 
scienceless exploiters.  When  finally 
our  country  was  drawn  into  the  war, 
this  steel  trust  again  boosted  the 
price  of  steel  and  demanded  $96  per 
ton.  It  actually  sold  some  to  the 
United  States  government  at  that 
price. 

While  the  government  is  drafting 
the  young  men  of  this  nation,  taking 
them  from  their  business  and  requir- 
ing them  to  risk  their  lives  and 
health  and  future  in  the  service  of 
the  country,  why  should  not  it  at 
once  seize  the  steel  plants  of  the 
United  States  Steel  corporation,  take 
possession  of  them  and  operate  them 
in  the  interests  of  the  public,  con- 
forming to  the  requirements  of  the 
constitution  and  allowing  the  same 
return  on  the  -value  of  the  property 
that  the  government  has  to  pay  on 
its  securities.  No  other  step  should 
be  considered.  Any*  less  drastic 
action  should  not  be  tolerated. 

This  would  not  only  protect  the 
government  from   the  outrageous   ex- 


12 


tortions  of  this  gang  of  highwaymen, 
who  are  as  criminal  in  their  purposes 
as  any  bandits  who  ever  plundered 
a  town  or  robbed  a  bank,  but  it 
would  protect  the  people  of  the 
United  States  front  the  oppressive 
extortion  which  this  trust  is  impos- 
ing upon  them  in  every  industrial  and 
commercial   activity. 

FRIDAY,  JUNE  29,  1917. 

A   NECESSARY  PROVISION. 

The  food  bill,  which  has  been  the 
subject  for  such  animated  debates  in 
both  the  Senate  and  House,  has  been 
re-written  so  we  are  advised  by  the 
press  dispatches  from  Washington. 
Be  it  said  to  the  honor  of  the  com- 
mittee that  re-WTote  it  that  they  have 
incorporated  in  it  a  provision  of  the 
highest  importance  providing  that  "it 
shall  be  unlawful  for  any  person 
acting  as  either  a  volunteer  or  paid 
employee  of  the  government,  includ- 
ing any  advisory  capacity  to  any 
commission,  board  or  council,  to  at- 
tempt to  procure  or  make  any  con- 
tract for  the  purchase  of  any  sup- 
plies for  the  use  of  the  government, 
either  from  himself  or  from  any  firm 
of  which  he  is  a  member,  or  corpor- 
ation of  which  he  is  an  advisor  or 
stock-holder  or  in  which  he  has  any 
financial  interest."  The  penalties 
provided  are  $10,000  fine  and  five 
years  imprisonment. 

If  this  provision  goes  into  effect,  it 
probably  will  •  cause  a  scattering 
among  the  present  war  boards  or  ad- 
visory committees  of  numerous  and 
various  kinds.  Mr.  Davis,  who  is  the 
head  of  the  aluminum  trust  which 
has  sold  to  the  government  more 
than  a  million  canteens  made  at  his 
factory,  will  have  to  stop  selling  his 
stuff  to  the  government  or  cease  as 
a  government  agent  to  supervise  such 
purchases;  and  a  number  of  other 
men  will  have  to  withdi'aw  from 
their  official  capacities  as  purchasing 
agents  or  supervisors  of  contracts 
made  with  firms  in  which  they  have 
financial  interests. 

But  the  astounding  thing  is  that 
congress  should  be  required  to  legis- 
late in  regard  to  such  a  matter.  The 
boldness  and  amazing  audacity  of  ap- 
pointing men  to  positions  where  they 
supervise  the  purchase  of  their  own 
products  and   fix  the   price  which   the 


government  shall  pay  for  such  prod- 
ucts, is  the  most  shocking  thing  in 
connection  with  the  present  situation 
tn  Washington. 

Senator  Crane  of  Massachusetts  re- 
fused the  position  of  secretary  of  the 
treasury  under  the  Taft  administra- 
tion, because  he  was  largely  inter- 
ested in  the  paper  mills  that  sold 
supplies  to  the  government.  Senator 
LaFollette  refused  to  vote  on  the 
tariff  on  zinc  in  the  senate,  because 
he  held  stock  in  zinc  mines.  But  no 
such  sensibilities  seem  to  prevail  in 
Washington    now. 

The  shocking  thing  is  that  in  order 
to  protect  the  people  of  the  United 
States  from  the  present  situation  a 
committee  of  congress,  a  majority  of 
the  members  of  which  are  adherents 
of  the  political  party  in  power,  finds 
it  necessary  to  incorporate  a  pro- 
vision in  the  law  fixing  heavy  penal- 
ties for  such  mal-administration  of 
public  affairs  as  is  now  admittedly 
going  on. 

MONDAY,  JULY  9,  1917.      ~ 

"IT  MAKES  US  TIRED." 

One  of  the  most  amazing  editorials 
that  has  recently  appeared  in  any 
paper  in  the  United  States,  was 
printed  on  the  front  page  of  the  Kan- 
sas City  Star  last  Friday,  under  the 
head  of  "It   Makes  Us   Tired." 

In  the  article  the  Star  commends 
the  policy  of  appointing  the  heads 
of  great  trusts  as  committees  to 
pass  upon  purchases  made  from  their 
own  factories.  It  apparently  ap- 
proves all  the  exploiting  not  only  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  but 
also  of  the  Allied  nations  by  the  in- 
dustrial combinations  of  this  country. 
It  approves  the  placing  of  Davis, 
president  of  the  aluminum  trust,  at 
the  head  of  a  sub-committee  which 
passes  on  aluminum  contracts  and 
purchases. 

That  the  readers  of  the  Journal 
may  understand  the  infamy  of  the 
proposition,  we  quote  the  testimonv 
of  Mr.  Davis  before  the  house  com- 
mittee on  foreign  affairs.  He  told  the 
committee  that  his  company  con- 
trolled the  aluminum  business  of  the 
United  States.  Representative  Por- 
ter asked  him  whether  the  govern- 
ment could  make  aluminum  canteens 
without  "buying  the  aluminum   from 


13 


your  factory?"  to  which  Davis  re- 
plied, "No,  sir."  Porter  asked  Davis 
how  much  actual  cash  had  been  put 
into  the  aluminum  trust  by  the 
org-anizers  and  owners  of  all  the 
stock.  His  answer  was,  "I  suppose 
$3,000,000  or  thereabouts."  He  was 
asked  what  was  the  capital  stock 
now.  He  replied  $20,000,000.  When 
asked  the  value  of  the  plant,  he  said 
$80,000,000. 

We  now  quote  from  the  Record: 

Mr.  Porter:  The  actual  cash  paid 
in,    not    money    from    the    profits  ? 

Mr.  Davis:  I  suppose  $3,000,000,  or 
thereabouts. 

Mr.  Porter:  What  dividend  did  you 
pay  last  year? 

Mr.  Davis:  Ten  per  cent  on  $20,- 
000,000. 

Mr.  Porter:  And  the  year  preced- 
ing? 

Mr.  Davis:  Ten  per  cent,  I  think 
it  was. 

Mr.  Porter:  Last  year  how  much 
of  your  profits  did  you  apply  to  bet- 
terment, in  addition  to  paying  the 
10  per  cent  dividends  ? 

Mr.  Davis:  Practically  all  of  the 
balance.  We  have  always  paid  very 
small  dividends,  but  I  cannot  remem- 
ber off-hand  the  exact  figures;  but 
for  the  first  eight  or  ten  years  of 
our  existence  we  did  not  pay  any 
dividends   at  all. 

Then  Mr.  Porter  asked  a  long  ques- 
tion.    He  concluded  by  saying: 

In  other  words,  how  much  did  you 
make   last  year? 

Mr.  Davis:  We  made  a  little  over 
$20,000,000. 

Mr.  Porter:     Last  year? 

Mr.  Davis:     Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Porter:  You  made  about  100 
per  cent  on  the  capital  stock? 

Mr.  Davis:  Yes,  sir;  and  about 
25  per  cent  on  the  investment. 

Mr.  Porter:  You  declared  a'  divi- 
dend of  10  per  cent?  ^ 

Mr.  Davis:     Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Porter:  And  90  per  cent,  or 
the  balance,  went  into  the  better- 
ment of  your  plant? 

Mr.  Davis:     Yes,  sir. 

During  the  Roosevelt  administra- 
tion this  trust  pleaded  guilty  to  vio- 
lating the  Sherman  anti-trust  law. 
It    paid    its    fine    and    continued    to 


operate  its  monopoly.  Today  its  con- 
trol is  world-wide  and  since  its  com- 
plete domination  of  the  market  its 
profits  have  been  fabulous.  Davis 
admits  that  last  year  his  company 
made  a  profit  on  the  original  invest- 
ment of  666%.  Yet  today  this  man 
is  supervising  the  purchase  of  alum- 
inum for  this  government  and  fixing 
the  price  that  it  shall  pay  not  only 
for  canteens,  but  for  the  aluminum 
which  goes  into  numberless  other 
articles,  including  the  airplanes  for 
the  construction  of  which  congress 
is  now  being  asked  to  appropriate 
$650,000,000. 

But  Davis  is  not  the  only  one. 
Farrell  of  the  steel  trust  which  is 
making  one-half  billion  a  year  out 
of  the  war,  is  also  on  the  advisory 
committee,  as  is  likewise,  Ryan  of 
the  copper  trust,  which  is  selling 
to  the  government  at  sixteen  cents 
a  pound  copper  which  his  company 
produces  at  a  cost  of  from  four  to 
eight  cents  a  pound,  depending  upon 
the  mine  from  which  it  is  obtained. 
Men  representing  concerns  which 
have  been  indicted  or  against  which 
suits  are  now  pending  for  violating 
the  anti-trust  laws  of  the  nation  are 
holding  important  positions  in  the 
government  service.  Yet  when  citi- 
zens protest  against  this  shameful 
and  dangerous  condition  they  are 
denounced  as  disloyal. 

While  the  youth  of  America  is 
being  drafted  into  the  army,  to 
be  sent  into  foreign  lands  and  the 
people  are  being  oppressed  with  un- 
precedented taxes,  these  captains  of 
high  finance  sit  in  the  Munsey  build- 
ing at  Washington  and  direct — at  a 
profit  to  themselves — the  expenditure 
of  the  billions  which  are  being  poured 
into  the  war  fund. 

One  of  the  first  results  of  the  war 
will  be  the  creation  of  the  American 
billionaire,  for  while  the  mills  of 
the  war  god  grind  out  the  lives  of  the 
brightest  of  America's  sons,  they  are 
also  grinding  out  gigantic  fortunes 
for  the  trust  magnates.  How  long 
a  patriotic  and  intelligent  people  will 
stand  for  this  condition,  time  alone 
can  tell. 

We  must  support  our  government, 
but  that  does  not  mean  that  we 
should  tolerate  such  shocking  mal- 
administration of  public  affairs. 


14 


WEDNESDAY.  JULY  11,  1917. 

SHOULD  BE  PROTECTED   IN   HIS 
RIGHT. 

In  our  opinion  the  people  of  the 
United  States  will  not  approve  of  the 
administration's  plan  of  suppressing 
Socialist  newspapers.  According  to 
the  press  dispatches  it  appears  that 
it  has  assumed  from  the  espionage 
bill  that  it  has  a  right  to  suppress 
papers  that  do  not  believe  that  we 
should  have  become  involved  in  the 
European  war  and  a  number  of  So- 
cialist publications  have  been  thrown 
out   of  the   mail. 

We  were  given  to  understand,  at 
least  by  the  press  dispatches,  that 
the  censorship  provision  in  the 
espionage  bill  had  been  cut  out 
completely.  We  never  have  been  an 
advocate  of  the  Socialistic  theory  of 
economic  progress;  but  this  is  a 
country  of  free  speech,  and  the  Post- 
master General  has  no  right  to  throw 
out  of  the  mails  a  publication  because 
he  does  not  agree  with  its  economic 
views.  To  find  an  excuse  in  some 
criticism  of  the  present  war  policy 
in  order  to  persecute  Socialistic  pub- 
lications, if  it  is  kept  up,  will  be 
a  most  potential  influence  in  creating 
Socialists. 

No  man  advocating  unsound  heresy 
can  succeed  with  an  intelligent,  self- 
governing  people.  This  is  a  govern- 
ment in  which  public  opinion  is  the 
sovereign  power.  No  administration 
can  live  that  does  not  conform  to  the 
dictates  of  public  opinion,  and  this 
administration  will  find  that  if  there 
is  one  thing  sacred  to  the  American 
people,  yet  it  is  the  liberty  of  the 
press,  where  criticisms  can  be  in- 
dulged in  and  where  economic 
theories  can  be  expounded  and  the 
responsibility  for  approving  the  good 
and  rejecting  the  bad  is  upon  the 
people   themselves. 

We  deeply  regret  that  the  Post- 
master General  is  disposed  to  perse- 
cute Socialists.  Up  to  this  time 
he  probably  has  made  as  few  errors, 
as  any  of  his  predecessors,  who 
served  in  that  capacity  as  long  as 
he  has,  but  this  one  is  the  gravest 
made  by  any  postmaster  general  in 
modern  times.  The  Socialist  ha§  the 
same  right  to  the  use  of  the  mail 
r\?  has   the   Democrat,   Republican   or 


Prohibitionist.       And    he     should     be 
protected   in   that  right. 

FRIDAY,  JULY  IsTlQlT. 

WILL  SOON  BE  SUPPORTING  US 
FULLY. 

From  the  report  of  the  speech 
which  Governor  Capper  made  at  Win- 
field  on  July  9  that  appeared  in 
the  Topeka  Capital  the  morning  of 
July  10,  it  appears  that  he  is  warn- 
ing the  people  against  graft  in  the 
federal  service  and  suggests  that 
some  of  the  appointments  that  are 
being  made  in  Washington  should  be 
closely    scrutinized. 

On  July  5,  the  Topeka  Daily  Capi- 
tal, owned  and  edited  by  the  Gov- 
ernor, made  an  attack  upon  the 
critics  of  the  Wilson  administration, 
plainly  indicating  that  the  criticism 
was  intended  for  the  editor  of  the 
Salina  Journal  and  styled  the  graft 
as  mere  "fly  specks,"  asking  the 
people  to  overlook  them  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  larger  things  of  the 
war. 

When  the  editor  of  the  Journal 
wrote  an  article  from  Washington 
that  has  created  so  much  discussion, 
the  Governor  promptly  criticised  him 
for  such  expressions;  and  it  is  ex- 
ceedingly gratifying  now  to  us  to 
have  the  Governor  in  his  mild  and 
placid  way,  practically  confirm  the 
statement  which  he  so  recently  criti- 
cised us  for  making.  After  he  has 
more  knowledge  of  the  conditions 
that  prevail  in  Washington,  he  wib 
be  cordially  supporting  our  proposi- 
tion instead  of  criticising  it,  because 
no  man  who  has  in  any  sense  the 
proper  view  of  public  service  can 
with  any  patience  tolerate  the  reck- 
less and  chaotic  extravagances  that 
are  now  permeating  the  military  de- 
partments of  the  United  States  gov- 
ernment. 

SATURDAY,   JULY  14,   1917. 
t 
GIVE    US    ACTION    INSTEAD    OF 
WORDS. 

President  Wilson,  in  his  statement 
issued  this  week,  warned  the  trusts 
and  combinations  that  have,  during 
recent  years,  been  exploiting  the 
American  people  and  the  nations  of 
the  world,  against  a  continuation  of 
such    extortion.      He    expressed    some 


15 


very   beautiful  sentiment  in  his  usual 
admirable  rhetoric. 

If   Mr.   Wilson   were   the    editor    of 
a  newspaper  and  held  no  position  of 
authority   in   the   g-overnment   of    the 
United   States,   his   address  would   be 
I      admirable  and  an  object  of  universal 
,'.     praise;    but,    being    president    of    the 
'      United   States   and   in    control   of   all 
K  the  powerful  agencies  of  the  govern- 
ment, it  appears  to  us  weak.     What 
the    American    people    want    now    is 
action,  not  words.        , 

The  men  in  control  of  these  power- 
ful industrial  enterprises  are  serving 
in  an  advisory  capacity  to  Mr.  Wil- 
son and  his  cabinet  officers  and  con- 
trolling contracts  for  the  purchase  of 
materials  which  they  themselves  pro- 
duce. It  is  within  the  power  of-  the 
president  to  correct  every  evil  against 
which  he  warns  these  men.  He  has 
under  his  direction  the  department 
I  of  justice,  the  trade  commission,  and 
other  departments  of  government 
:'ossessed  with  tremendous  power. 

He  has  now  serving  on  these  ad- 
visory boards  committees  who  de- 
termine the  material  that  is  to  ba 
used  and  the  prices  paid  in  the  con- 
struction of  battleships,  merchant 
ships,  the  manufacture  of  munitions 
and  war  materials  of  every  kind,  men 
who  are  interested  in  the  industries 
and  who  profit  by  the  price. 

A  representative  of  the  great  lum- 
ber combination  is  on  the  lumber 
committee.  Officers  of  the  steel  trust 
I  are  advising  as  to  the  construction 
I  of  battleships  and  merchant  vessels. 
Some  of  the  concerns  whose  officers 
are  on  these  advisory  committees 
are  under  indictment  and  have  cases 
now  pending  against  them  in  the 
United    States   courts. 

If  the  president  will  exercise  his 
great  power  and  drive  out  these 
money  changers  from  the  govern- 
mental temples,  prosecute  with  vigor 
nnd  send  these  culprits  to  jail,  such 
action  will  be  much  more  enthusiasti- 
cally received  than  the  beautifill 
phrases  which  he  uses  in  warning 
them. 

TUESDAY.  JULY  17,  1917.  ~~ 

SOME  OF  THE  PROFITS  OF  WAR. 

Secretary  Lane,  who,  up  to  the  time 
he  became  secretary  of  the  interior, 
had   made   an   admirable   record   as   a 


member  of  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission,  appointed  by  Mr.  Roose- 
velt and  re-appointed  by  Mr.  Taft, 
has,  since  he  became  a  member  of 
the  present  cabinet,  seemed  to  feel 
that  it  is  his  duty  to  defend  every 
act  of  the  administration,  right  or 
wrong. 

He  is  now  defending  the  advisory 
council  and  says  that  the  members 
are  not  clothed  with  official  authority 
and  cannot  let  contracts,  which  is 
true;  but  nobody  knows  any  better 
than  Secretary  Lane  that  they  con- 
trol the  contracts;  that  their  advice 
is  accepted;  and  that  the  govern- 
ment has  rented  elaborate  quarters 
in  the  Munsey  building  where  these 
captains  of  industry  meet  every  day 
with  an  army  of  governmental  clerks 
and  pass  upon  the  administrative  af- 
fairs of  this  government  in  the  pur- 
chase of  materials  of  every  character, 
and  that  with  rare  exceptions  their 
recommendations   are  followed. 

While  they  have  no  legal  authority 
to  control  prices,  they  do  control 
them  and  determine  the  quantities 
and  character  of  materials  and  the 
prices  that  shall  be  paid. 

If  this  advisory  council  were  abol- 
ished and  some  of  the  men  compos- 
ing it  were  compelled  to  defend  them- 
selves in  the  courts  by  a  vigorous 
prosecution  of  the  cases  which  are 
now  pending  against  them,  the  Amer- 
ican people  would  have  more  confi- 
dence in  the  good  purposes  of  this 
administration. 

If  there  is  no  graft  or  extortion  on 
the  part  of  these  monopolies,  why 
does  the  president  warn  them  in  one 
sentence  that  they  must  bev/are, 
and  appeal  to  them  in  another,  to 
lay  aside  their  avarice  and  be  gov- 
erned by  patriotic  impulses  instead  of 
by  an  insatiable  desire  to  pile  up 
added  millions. 

Consider  for  a  moment  some  of 
these  profits  as  shown  by  their  official 
reports. 

The  net  profits  of  the  powder  trust, 
as  shown  by  their  annual  reports  for 
the  year  1914  were  four  million  dol- 
lars. Two  years  later,  or  for  1916, 
these  profits  had  advanced  to  82  mil- 
lion dollars,  an  increase  in  two  years 
of  more  than  2,000  per  cent. 

The  profits  of  the  steel  trust  in- 
creased from  approximately  100  mil- 
lion dollars  a  year  to  500  million  dol- 


16 


lars  a  year  during  the  same  period 
of   time. 

The  profits  of  the  Swift  Packing 
company  increased  from  nine  mil- 
lions to  20  million  dollars  during  the 
same  period.  The  Armour  Packing 
company's  profits  increased  from 
seven  million  dollars  to  20  million 
dollars. 

The  Central  Leather  company, 
commonly  known  as  the  leather  trust, 
increased  its  profits  from  four  mil- 
lion to  15  million  dollars. 

These  great  commercial  and  indus- 
trial concerns,  as  a  result  of  this  war, 
are  amassing  millions  and  millions  of 
dollars  every  month.  This  does  not 
come  wholly  from  the  sale  of  war 
materials  to  the  allied  nations  and 
the  United  States,  but  partly  from 
the  greatly  increased '  price  they 
charge  the  American  people  for  near- 
ly everything  they  use. 

Secretary  Lane  may  continue  to  de- 
fend these  men  and  the  president 
may  continue  to  make  addresses,  but 
if  that  is  all  that  is  done  these 
men  will  continue  to  exploit  the 
American  people.  What  is  wanted, 
we  repeat,  is  not  beautiful  addresses 
and  charming  language,  but  effective 
action. 

FRIDAY,  JULY  20,  1917.      ~ 

PLUNGING    TOWARD    NATIONAL 
BANKRUPTCY. 

The  senate  has  adopted  an  amend- 
ment to  the  food  bill  making  it  un- 
lawful for  any  parties  interested  in 
contracts  to  have  any  position  on  an 
advisory  committee  passing  upon  the 
merits  of  such  contracts,  whether 
they  serve  with  or  without  pay. 

The  surprising  thing  is  that  such 
legislation  should  be  necessary  in 
order  to  prevent  an  administration 
from  putting  in  responsible  positions 
men  interested  in  the  profits  of  con- 
tracts, the  letting  of  which  they 
supervise.  They,  themselves,  not  only 
represent  their  own  interests,  but 
those  of  the  government  as  well. 

Since  the  United  States  entered 
into  the  European  war  there  has  been 
the  most  amazing  condition  existing 
in  Washington  that  ever  existed 
there  in  the  history  of  this  country. 
With  a  brazenness  shocking  to  man- 
kind, men  have  been  making  millions 
out    of    government    contracts,    which 


they  supervised,  fixing  the  prices,  de- 
termining the  materials  and  reap- 
ing the  rewards. 

This  scandal  has  become  so  offen- 
sive that  the  senate,  which  is  strong- 
ly jjemocratic,  last  Wednesday,  by  an 
overwhelming  vote,  amended  the 
food  bill  so  as  to  forbid  the  continu- 
ation of  this  practice. 

The  amendment,  is  involved  and  has 
complicated  phraseology.  It  seems  to 
be  satisfactory  to  the  grafters  a.* 
well  as  the  senators  who  are  opposed 
to  such  practices,  which  casts  sus- 
picion upon  the  effectiveness  of  the 
legislation. 

From  the  foundation  of  this  gov- 
ernment down  to  the  present  time 
there  never  has  been  any  adminis- 
tration so  shameless  in  its  method? 
of  plundering  the  public  revenue. 
You  may  search  the  history  of  man- 
kind from  the  time  of  Roman  pro- 
fligacy down  to  the  present  hour  and 
you  cannot  find  any  organized  gov- 
ernment among  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  that  has  expended  public 
money  with  such  reckless  and  crim- 
inal extravagance  as  the  present  ad- 
ministration has  during  the  last  six 
months. 

In  wasting  the  money  exacted 
from  the  people  by  taxation,  this  ad- 
ministration stands  alone  and  un- 
paralleled in  the  history  of  the 
human  race,  and  it  seems  from  re- 
ports from  Washington  this  era  of 
profligacy  has  just  begun.  It  is  now 
estimated  that  the  expense  of  this 
war  during  the  first  year  is  to  be 
more  than  12  billions  of  dollars, 
practically  three  times  as  much  as 
the  cost  of  the  conduct  of  the  great 
Civil  war  during  the  four  years  that 
it  continued.  Unless  there  is  a  rad- 
ical change  before  two  more  years 
expire,  we  will  be  facing  national 
bankruptcy. 

SATURDAY,   JULY  21,   1917. 

THE  SHOE  CONTRACTS  DISTURB. 

Senator  Townsend  of  Michigan,  a 
conservative  and  courteous  gentle- 
man, became  so  overcome  with  in- 
dignation in  the  senate  debate  on 
July  17,  that  he  declared  a  "host 
of  vultures  are  flocking  to  Washing- 
ton to  secure  war  contracts,"  and 
Senator  Kenyon,  who  has  had  quite  a 
friendlv   leaning   toward   Mr.    Wilson. 


17 


severely  oriticised  the  shoe  contracts 
let  by  the  council  of  national  de- 
fense. 

Why  should  Senator  Kenyon  criti- 
cise the  shoe  contract?  Is  he  not 
aware  that  Mr.  J.  F.  McElwain,  pres- 
ident of  the  W.  H.  McElwain  com- 
pany of  Boston,  that  has  seven  shoe 
factories,  is  the  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee on  shoe  and  leather  indus- 
tries; and  that  John  A.  Bush,  presi- 
dent of  the  Brown  Shoe  company  of 
St.  Louis,  which  last  year  more  than 
doubled  its  profits  by  charging  war 
prices;  Charles  P.  Hall  of  the  Amer- 
ican Hide  &  Leather  company  of  Bos- 
ton, and  W.  G.  Garrett  of  the  Cen- 
tral Leather  company  of  Boston,  are 
also   members   of  the   committee? 

The  particular  contract  which 
seems  to  have  started  the  discussion 
was  one  for  400,000  pairs  of  shoes, 
which  was  let  to  Mr.  McElwain  at 
fifteen  cents  per  pair  more  than  was 
bid  by  a  company  not  represented  on 
the   committee. 

Does  the  senator  expect  these  high- 
toned  gentlemen  who  are  serving 
without  pay  to  let  contracts  to  them- 
selves without  a  sufficient  profit  to 
compensate  them .  for  the  time  they 
are  "patriotically"  devoting  to  the 
service  of  the  government? 

As  for  Senator  Townsend,  we  have 
s  always  admired  his  courtesy  and  his 
I  inclination  not  to  say  anything  that 
would  give  pain  or  even  discomfort 
to  anyone.  However,  instead  of  say- 
ing that  a  "host  of  vultures  are 
flocking  to  Washington,"  he  could 
more  fittingly  have  declared  that  a 
host  of  vultures  are  in  Washington 
clothed  with  official  authority  by 
Mr.  Wilson  and  are  devouring  the 
substance  of  the  American  people  in 
an  orgy  of  public  plunder  and  pillage 
the  like  of  which  this  country  nor 
any  other  has  heretofor  seen. 

We  respectfully  call  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Kansas  City  Star,  and  the 
Topeka  State  Journal  and  our 
esteemed  contemporary,  the  Topeka 
Daily  Capital,  the  stories  of  the  con- 
ditions in  Washington  that  are  now 
being  widely  printed,  and  ask  them 
to  join  with  us  in  an  effort  to  stop 
this  orgy  of  waste  and  profligacy 
which  the  present  national  adminis- 
tration has  turned  loose  upon  the 
;"ountrv. 


WEDNESDAY,  JULY  25,  1917. 

LOSING     CONFIDENCE     IN     MR. 
WILSON'S  ADMINISTRATION. 

Mr.  Wilson  in  a  letter  to  Repre- 
sentative. Lever  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives demands  that  a  provision 
in  the  food  bill  for  a  committee  tc 
supervise  the  expenditures  of  the 
war  be  eliminated  and  states  that  he 
regards  it  as  a  vote  of  lack  of  con- 
fidence in  him. 

Mr.  Wilson  demands  absolute  and 
unqualified  authority  in  all  things 
and  resents  congress  assuming  to  ex- 
ercise any  of  the  functions  which  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States  pro- 
vides that  it  shall.  But  as  to  con- 
fidence in  Mr.  Wilson,  if  the  presi- 
dent will  inquire  from  some  of  his 
advisers  as  to  why  that  provision 
was  incorporated  into  the  bill,  he 
will  learn  that  it  was  incorporated 
because  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
money  which  congress  is  voting  is 
being   expended. 

The  president  has  appointed  what 
he  calls  an  advisory  council,  which 
in  fact  is  passing  on  all  contracts 
which  the  government  makes  for  war 
materials.  This  council  has  a  num- 
ber of  sub-committees,  one  of  which 
passes  upon  shoe  contracts.  Con- 
tracts were  recently  let  for  shoes. 
J.  F.  McElwain,  president  of  the  Mc- 
Elwain Shoe  company  of  Boston, 
which  has  seven  shoe  factories,  is  a 
member  of  the  sub-committee  on  the 
shoe  purchases.  His  company  was 
given  a  contract  for  100,000  pairs  of 
one  grade  of  shoes  at  eight  cents  a 
pair  more  than  was  asked  by  other 
bidders,  and  400,000  pairs  of  another 
kind  of  shoes  at  15  cents  a  pair  more 
than  was  bid  by  other  firms. 

Th^  Brown  Shoe  company  of  St. 
Louis,  whose  president,  John  A. 
Bush,  is  also  a  member  of  the  same 
sub-comrriittee  was  also  given  a  con- 
tract at  a  higher  price  than  other 
bidders  were  paid  for  the  same  shoes. 

These  shoe  contracts  simply  illu- 
strate what  is  going  on  in  Washing- 
ton. The  same  process  is  being  fol- 
lowed in  the  purchase  of  all  the  sup- 
plies for  the  great  army  that  is  being 
organized.  The  exposure  of  the  graft 
that  is  going  on  led  to  the  incorpor- 
ation of  this  provision  in  the  bill.  In 
the     debate     there     was     the     usual 


18 


amount  of  oratory  expended  in  ex- 
tolling the  patriotism  of  these  men 
who  are  ^making  so  many  millions 
out  of  contracts  with  the  govern- 
ment and  in  answer  to  one  of  these 
criticisms  Senator  Borah   said: 

"There  are  those  of  us  who  oppose 
the  situation  as  it  now  exists,  not 
because  we  assail  the  individual  in- 
tegrity of  these  men,  but  because  we 
do  not  think  it  wise  to  start  into 
this  war  in  violation  of  the  great 
underlying  principle  of  honesty  that 
a  man  should  not  be  permitted  lo 
contract  with  himself.  It  is  true,  as 
the  Senator  says,  that  technically  he 
does  not  do  that,  but  substantially 
he  does  it.  Let  us  assume  for  the 
sake  of  the  argument,  that  the  gov- 
ernment will  suffer  no  actual  financial 
loss;  let  us  accredit  these  men  with 
honesty  and  patriotism.  Is  not  there 
some  way  to  avoid  having  a  lot  of 
men  selling  millions  of  dollars  of 
property  to  the  government  upon 
their  own  counsel-  and  advice?" 

Can  the  president  expect  the  people 
to  continue  confidence  in  his  adminis- 
tration when  such  practices  are  pre- 
valent everywhere.  Moreover  if 
those  trust  magnates  that  have  been 
robbing  the  American  people  out  of 
millions  for  the  last  few  years  be- 
cause of  the  European  war  are  self- 
sacrificing  patriots  they  ought  to 
demonstrate  that  by  turning  into  the 
public  treasury  to  help  bear  the  bur- 
dens of  this  war  some  of  their  ill- 
gained  wealth.  Let  them  first  dis- 
gorge, beginning  with  the  steel  trust, 
which  made  approximately  $500,000,- 
000  last  year,  the  powder  trust  which 
made  over  $80,000,000,  and  the  lesser 
ones. 

JULY  28.  1917.  ~. 

FOOD  BILL  AFFECTS  GREAT 
KANSAS  INDUSTRY. 

There  is  a  great  deal  "of  appre- 
hension among  the  farmers  of  the 
country  as  to  the  effect  the  food  bill 
will  have  on  the  price  of  wheat,  and 
we  think  that  there  are  abundant 
grounds  for  such  concern. 

Wheat  is  selling  now  in  Central 
Kansas  for  around  $2.40  a  bushel.  If 
the  government  fixes  the  minimum 
price  at  $1.75  or  $2  a  bushel,  there  is 
grave  danger  that  the  buyers  will 
take   that   as   a    government   sanction 


and  not  pay  more  fearing  chat  the 
margin  which  they  will  be  permitted 
to  have  for  handling  the  grain  will 
be  fixed  upon  the  basis  of  the  $1.75 
or   $2   a   bushel. 

The  speculator,  if  he  thinks  he  can 
sell  wheat  for  $3  later  on,  will  take 
his  chances  and  bid  up  for  the  wheat. 
If  he  believes  he  is  going  to  be  re- 
quired to  sell  at  a  margin  slightly 
above  that  which  he  pays  and  the 
government  fixes  the  price  at  $1.75 
or  $2,  there  is  a  possibility  that  he 
will  consider  the  price  which  the 
government  fixes  as  a  government 
price  and  hesitate  to  go  beyond  that 
Of  course,  this  is  simply  specula- 
tion. It  may  not  be  realized.  The 
buyer  may  continue  to  pay  more  than 
the  minimum  price  fixed.  There  is 
nothing  to  prevent  him  from  paying 
more  except  the  apprehension  that 
he  will  not  be  permitted  to  sell  it 
for  much  more  than  that  by  the  food 
commission  upon  tne  grounds  that  a 
fair  margin  over  the  minimum  price 
fixed  by  the  government  is  rea- 
sonable. 

Ordinarily  $2  is  an  excessive  price 
for  wheat  in  this  western  country. 
In  the  eastern  part  of  the  United 
States  it  is  not  any  more  than  it 
costs  to  raise  it  and  there  wheat  is 
only  grown  because  it  is  necessary 
for  a  rotation  of  crops  not  because 
it  is  profitable.  However,  taking  into 
consideration  the  loss  due  to  failure 
in  Kansas,  considering  the  state  as 
a  whole,  with  the  price  the  farmers 
are  now  being  compelled  to  pay  for 
everything  they  buy,  there  is  no  more 
profit  in  $2  a  bushel  now  than  there 
was  in  90c  or  $1  wheat  before  the 
war  began. 

If  you  applied  the  same  system  of 
accounting  to  the  business  of  farm- 
ing that  is  applied  by  the  corpora- 
tions when  they  are  demanding  a 
reasonable  profit  on  their  products, 
wheat  would  not  be  less  than  $1.50 
a  bushel,  in  normal  times. 

A  great  complaint  is  made  by  the 
theoretical  economists  of  the  country 
about  the  desertion  of  the  American 
farm  and  a  movement  has  been  agi- 
tated for  years  to  get  men  to  go  back 
to  the  farm.  "Back  to  the  farm"  has 
been  the  cry,  but  it  has  not  worked. 
The  young  men  leave  the  farm  at  the 
first  opportunity,  because  they  can 
find  more  lucrative  employment  el~€- 


19 


vvhere,  and  as  a  man  said  to  me  not 
ong  ago,  "I  intend  to  quit  the  farm 
-xnd  go  to  town  because  I  can  earn 
I  living  a  great  deal  easier  there 
ihan    1    do    here." 

We  do  not  know  what  the  effect  of 
this  food  bill  may  be,  but  if  it  is  in- 
tended to  keep  down  the  price  of 
farm  products  while  the  prices  of 
other  commodities  are  soaring  to  the 
iky,  it  will  be  a  disastrous  piece  of 
legislation.  We  have  not  opposed  it 
because  we  can  see  some  elements  of 
good  in  it.  If  properly  adminis- 
tered, it  can  be  very  useful  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  If  im- 
properly administered,  it  will  become 
a  burden  upon  American  agriculture 
and  a  grave  injustice  to  the  produc- 
ing element  of  our  population. 

I  sympathize  with  the  apprehension 
of  the  farmer,  but  trust  that  this  ap- 
prehension may  not  be  realized. 
Somehow  or  other  I ,  feel  that  we 
need  niore  wisdom  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  our  government  at  Wash- 
ington. Abraham  Lincoln  was  presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  during  the 
greatest  crisis  our  nation  has  ever 
gone  through.  We  had  a  terrible  war 
devastating  our  country.  More  than 
one-third  of  the  states  were  in  open 
rebellion.  It  was  a  long  and  bloody 
conflict  lasting  four  years,  but  he 
guided  the  destinies  of  our  country 
and  asked  for  no  such  power  as  Mr. 
Wilson  is  asking  congress  to  give 
him.  He  sought  no  arbitrary  con- 
trol of  the  ordinary  business  transac- 
tions of  the  people  and  if  we  only 
had  that  homely  wisdom  and  sound 
common  sense  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
at  the  helm  of  the  nation  now,  we 
would  feel  much  more  secure  than  we 
can  under  the  present  conditions. 
What  we  need  in  public  life  today 
is  more  sound  common  sense  and  less 
theory,  more  inherent  honesty  and 
less  greed,  more  real  patriotism  and 
less  arrogant  bombastic  declamation. 

THURSDAY,  AGUGUST  2,  19177~ 

"SOMEWHERE   IN   FRANCE." 

We  received  a  clipping  from  a 
friend  in  a  western  county,  from  a 
published  letter  of  one  of  the  Ameri- 
can soldiers  in  France  to  his  mother. 
The  headline  was  "Somewhere  in 
Prance."  He  is  not  permitted  to 
let    his    mother    know    where    he    is. 


Nothing  could  illustrate  the  super- 
ficial gullibility  of  the  present  officers 
of  the  war  department  any  more  than 
such  a  headline — as  though  it  were 
possible  for  the  American  govern- 
ment to  conceal  the  location  of 
American  troops  from  the  command- 
ers of  the  German  army. 

There  "never  has  been  a  war  of  any 
consequence  when  all  nations  in- 
volved have  not  been  able  success- 
fully to  locate  the  armies  of  their 
opponents.  The  secretary  of  the 
navy  was  indignant  to  think  that  the 
officers  of  the  German  navy  knew 
where  the  American  fleet  was  and 
were  able  to  attack  it  with  sub- 
marines. If  he  had  the  ordinary  in- 
formation which  an  American  high 
school  boy  ought  to  have,  he  would 
have  known  that  any  civilized  govern- 
ment of  any  consequence  engaged  in 
war  first  organized  its  lines  of  com- 
munication so  as  to  have  perfect 
knowledge  of  the  movement  of  the 
enemy;  but  the  silliest  thing  is  to 
refuse  to  permit  boys,  who  have  been 
sent  to  France  to  take  part  in  this 
European  war,  to  let  their  mothers 
know  what  part  of  the  republic  they 
are  located  in,  as  though  a  letter 
written  back  home,  telling  where  a 
soldier  is  located,  would  be  valuable 
information  to  the  German  army. 

It  is  very  unfortunate  that  in 'the 
great  crisis  through  which  the  Amer- 
ican government  is  passing  that  we 
have  not  men  in  control  of  the  great 
departments  of  the  government,  who 
are  broad-minded  and  endowed  with 
the  profound  common  sense  required 
to  understand  the  movements  of  the 
affairs  of  the  world  and  of  nations 
as  well  as  the  natui'e  of  the  Ameri- 
can  people. 

When  Germany  is  defeated,  as  we 
believe  she  ultimately  will  be,  it  will 
be  done  by  a  powerful  organized 
military  force  and  not  by  such  kin- 
dergarten strategy  as  the  present  of- 
ficers of  the  war  department  are  en- 
gaged in.  In  the  other  wars  in  which 
our-  government  has  been  involved, 
and  which  it  has  succrssfully  fought, 
it  was  not  a  crime  for  a  soldier  to 
write  home  and  tell  where  he  was. 

There  is  an  additional  illustration 
of  the  size  of  the  administrative  of- 
ficers now  in  charge  of  the  govern- 
ment; namely,  the  action  of  George 
Creel,  the  official  censor  of  the  state 


20 


department,  in  withholding  informa- 
tion from  the  American  public  as  to 
an  attack  by  submarines  upon  the 
American  fleet,  until  he  could  write 
it  up  in  his  own  style,  coloring  and 
distorting  the  facts,  so  that  he  could 
make  what  he  believed  would  be  a 
good  Fourth  of  July  story  and  feed 
it   out   to   the   American    press. 

To  show  the  wisdom  and  far- 
sighted  sagacity  of  this  man  Creel, 
he  refused  to  let  the  American  people 
know  where  the  attack  was  made 
upon  their  fleet,  because  he  did  not 
want  the  Germans  to  know  about  it. 
Since  the  Germans  had  discovered  the 
fleet  and  attacked  it  and  were  suc- 
cessfully driven  off,  we  presume  that 
he  supposes  that  the  officers  of  the 
German  fleet  of  submarines  will  con- 
ceal from  their  government  the 
whereabouts  of  the  American  fleet, 
or  even  refuse  to  tell  where  it  was 
when  they  found  it.  But  this  piece 
of  intelligent  censorship  on  the  part 
of  Mr.  Creel  is  in  keeping  with  the 
whole  policy  of  the  present  adminis- 
tration  of  our  national   affairs. 

Heretofore  the  dispatches  of  the 
American  navy  have  been  printed 
when  received  so  that  the  American 
people  could  know  what  their  army 
and  navy  were  doing;  but  now  our 
government  looks  upon  the  people 
in  a  different  light  from  that  in 
which  they  have  been  regarded  by  the 
administrations  of  the  past.  It  is  not 
thought  safe  to  give  them  informa- 
tion or  the  facts  as  they  are,  but 
they  must  be  fixed  up  according  to 
the  notion  of  some  newspaper  cor- 
respondent in  the  state  department  as 
to  what  he  thinks  will  be  good  for 
them  to  have. 

We  suppose  from  now  on  during 
this  war  this  official  pabulum  will  be 
cooked  up  in  the  state  department 
and 'handed  out  at  convenient  sea- 
sons. The  American  people  may 
stand  for  this  for  a  time,  but  not  for 
a  great  while. 

SATURDAY,  AUGUST  4.  1917.  ~ 

CRITICISM  A  DUTY. 

A  Salina  alleged  Republican  has 
severely  assailed  the  editor  of  the 
Journal  for  his  criticism  of  the  pres- 
ent national  administration,  upon  the 
theory  that  this  is  no  time  to  criticise 
the    government.      He    inquired    of    a 


friend  of  ours  why  we  did  not  com- 
mend the  government  instead  of  criti- 
cising it.  It  is  a  source  of  deep  re- 
gret that  we  are  not  able  to  com- 
mend the  present  management  of  our 
government.  It  certainly  would  be 
more  pleasant  for  us  to  do  so  than  . 
to  criticise,  but  we  cannot  conscien- 
tiously commend  that  which  is  not 
worthy  of  commendation;  and  criti- 
cism in  times  like  these  is  of  the 
highest  importance.  He  who  still 
calls  attention  to  the  shortcomings 
of  this  administration,  and  thereby 
helps  to  avoid  a  repetition  of  th»» 
blunders  that  have  been  made  renders 
the  greatest  public  service. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  criticism 
that  has  been  levelled  against  Mr. 
Wilson,  this  infamous  advisory  com- 
mission of  the  council  of  national  de- 
fense, which  marks  probably  the  most 
disgraceful  episode  in  the  history  of 
our  government  so  far  as  the  pur- 
chase of  government  supplies  is  con- 
cerned, would  still  be  in  force,  and 
men  like  Arthur  V.  Davis  of  the 
aluminum  trust,  John  A.  Bush,  presi- 
dent of  the  Brown  Shoe  Company, 
J.  F.  McElwain  of  the  McElwain 
Company,  James  A.  Ferrell,  president 
of  the  United  States  Steel  corpor- 
ation, and  J.  D.  Ryan  of  the  Ana- 
conda Copper  company  would  still  be 
advising  as  to  the  contracts  and  fix- 
ing the  prices  which  their  companies 
are  to  receive  from  the  government 
for  their  own  wares. 

Criticism  has  resulted  in  the  aban- 
donment of  at  least  the  form  of  the 
graft  which  has  been  so  manifest. 
Criticism  caused  the  war  department 
to  change  the  per  cent  which  those  '' 
who  are  erecting  cantonments  are  to 
receive  from  ten  per  cent  to  7  per 
cent  of  the  cost  of  construction.  A? 
it  is  working  out,  this  change  may 
not  be  very  desirable  and  may  merit 
greater  criticism  than  the  former* 
method,  because  the  war  department 
permits  each  one  of  these  contractors 
building  these  cantonments  a  maxi- 
mum of  $250,000  as  compensation. 
That  is  *to  be  the  maximum  he  can 
earn  and  in  order  to  get  the  $250,000. 
he  may  ru^  the  expense  up  sufficient- 
ly to  make  seven  per  cent  aggregate 
the  maximum  allowance  which  he  can 
receive,  so  it  really  may  have  been 
cheaper  to  have  paid  the  ten  per  cent 
Then   it   would   not  have  been   neces- 


21 


sary  for  the  cantonments  to  have  cost 
go  much,  in  order  for  the  contractor 
to  get  the  $250,000,  and  from  the 
methods  employed  by  these  men  they 
all  seem  bent  upon  getting  the  maxi- 
mum allowance. 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  makes  a  pretty  good  fortune 
for  the  ordinary  man  and  if  the  con- 
tractor for  each  one  of  these  canton- 
ments makes  that  amount  in  a  few 
months'  time,  without  any  risk,  as  the 
government  has  the  national  treasury 
to  draw  on  for  the  payment  of  all  of 
these  bills  at  whatever  price  the  con- 
tractor sees  fit  to  pay,  it  is  a  pretty 
soft  snap  for  the  contractor,  so  the 
reduction  of  the  rate  per  cent  from 
ten  to  seven  ultimately  may  result 
in  an  increase  of  the  expense  to  the 
government. 

The  perfidy,  however,  is  in  the  sys- 
tem the  war  department  is  using  in 
order  to  construct  these  cantonments. 
It  was  not  necessary  to  use  the 
methods  followed,  it  was  simply  de- 
sirable to  a  lot  of  grafters  and  they 
seem  to  be  in  control  in  national  af- 
fairs. 

FRIDAY,  SEPTEMBER  7,  1917~ 

AN  OUTRAGE. 

The  editor  of  the  Journal,  while  re- 
cently in  Washington,  was  called 
upon  by  the  husband  of  one  of  the 
suffragists  who  have  been  arrested 
for  picketing.  He  made  a  bitter  com- 
plaint against  the  treatment  his  wife 
was  receiving  in  the  work-house  of 
the  District  of  Columbia.  He  seems 
to  be  a  responsible  business  man  of 
Chicago,  whose  wife  is  an  ardent  and 
enthusiastic  suffragette. 

Able  lawyers  declare  that  these 
women  committed  no  violation  of  the 
law — that  when  they  were  arrested 
for  obstructing  the  sidewalk,  if  legal- 
ly held,  it  was  upon  an  extreme  tech- 
nicality, and  that  their  incarceration 
is  arbitrary  and  tyrannical.  But  Mr. 
Watson,  of  Chicago,  declared  that 
his  wife  was  rudely  treated,  kept  in 
filthy  surroundings,  compelled  to  eat 
unwholesome  food  and  that  the  chief 
officer  and  his  assistant  were  insult- 
ing and  abusive  to  these  women  pris- 
oners. Many  of  them  are  women  of 
refinement.  They  are  enthusiastic 
and  believe  they  are  martyrs  to  a 
righteous   cause.     They   sxiffer   indig- 


nity and  imprisonment  for  opinion's 
sake  and  nothing  else. 

Their  incarceration  is  in  line  with 
the  actions  of  the  former  czar  ol 
Russia,  when  he  sent  thousands  of 
political  prisoners  to  the  jails  and 
banished  them  to  the  wilds  of  Siberia. 
While  we  are  fighting  for  the  liberty 
of  the  world  in  the  European  war,  we 
seem  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
the  liberties  of  the  American  people 
are  fast  being  sacrificed  by  an  arbi- 
trary tyranny,  the  like  of  which 
would  never  have  been  tolerated  in 
any  other  period  of  American  history. 

There  is  enthroned  in  Washington 
today  an  arrogant  autocracy,  whose 
counterpart  the  American  people  have 
never  heretofore  known  and  the  awful 
catastrophe  that  confronts  the  nation 
as  a  result  of  the  European  war,  so 
appalls  thinking  people  that  they 
pass  by  with  little  notice  the  outrages 
that  are  being  committed  on  these, 
it  may  be,  over  enthusiastic  cham- 
pions of  the  suffrage  cause. 

MONDAY,  SEPTEMBER  10,  19177 

MR.  RIPLEY'S  EFFUSION. 

Mr.  E.  P.  Ripley,  president  of  the 
Santa  Fe,  in  a  letter  to  the  Chicago 
Tribune  made  a  violent  attack  upon 
the  Public  Utilities  Commission  of 
Kansas  because  it  refused  to  in- 
crease the  minimum  car  load  weight 
for  grain  and  grain  products  from 
24,000  pounds  to  40,000  pounds.  !n 
this  letter  among  other  things  he 
said: 

"When  it  is  considered  that  the 
average  equipment  of  today  will 
carry  about  60,000  and  most  of  it 
80,000  pounds  and  over,  the  minimum 
of  24,000  pounds  which  the  state  of 
Kansas  refuses  to  advance  is  nothing 
less  than  an  outrage  upon  investors, 
a  gross  discrimination  against  ship- 
pers furnishing  large  loads,  and  in 
this  time  of  war  such  an  'aid  and 
comfort'  to  the  enemy  as  to  be  really 
treasonable." 

Mr.  Ripley  seems  to  think  that  the 
only  business  of  the  common  carrier 
is  to  earn  returns  for  the  stock- 
holders and  provide  equipment  for 
large  shippers.  The  fact  that  the 
majority  of  the  freight  cars  will 
carry  from  60,000  to  80,000  pounds 
has  practically  little  bearing  upon  the 
action     of    the    Kansas    Commission 


22 


which  he  so  severely  criticises.  The 
railroads  are  operated  for  the  pur- 
pose of  serving  the  public.  The  com- 
mercial conditions  that  exist  in  Kan- 
sas are  such  that  any  material  in- 
crease in  the  minimum  car  load 
weights  from  24,000  pounds  wouid 
seriously  interfere  with  the  normal 
commercial  operations  of  the  people. 
It  is  not  practicable  to  load  every 
car  to  its  capacity.  Where  it  is 
practicable  to  load  cars  to  their  ca- 
pacity shippers  are  urged  to  do  so, 
but  a  railroad  should  be  required  to 
provide  equipment  to  properly  servp- 
the  commerce  of  the  state  and  com- 
munities which  it  is  chartered  to 
serve.  The  smaller  communities  are 
worthy  of,  and  entitled  to,  considera- 
tion as  well  as  the  railroad.  The 
commercial  and  industrial  condition 
of  the  people  is  one  of  the  important 
factors  in  all  transportation  questions 
and  is  of  greater  importance  than 
the  character  of  the  equipment  which 
the  railroad  has  acquired.  If  the 
railroad  has  not  equipment  proper 
for  the  service  required  of  it,  then 
it  should  obtain  it.  That  is  one  of 
its  obligations.  We  have  no  doubt 
that  the  60,000  pound  and  80,000 
pound  cars  are  very  useful  in  hand- 
ling through  traffic  where  long  dis- 
tances are  to  be  covered  and  heavy 
commodities  are  to  be  carried,  but 
it  is  just  as  important  that  the 
smaller  communities  that  cannot  use 
such  large  quantities  of  the  commod- 
ities necessary  for  their  existence  and 
welfare  shall  be  able  to  get  reasona- 
ble rates  on  smaller  car  load  lots, 
and  the  Commission  was  mindful  of 
the  interests  of  the  people  of  the 
state  as  well  as  the  carrier  when  it 
issued  the  order. 

It  would  be  well  for  Mr.  Ripley 
and  other  railroad  magnates  to  real- 
ize that  they  are  servants  of  th^ 
public  and  not  masters  of  mankind, 
and  it  would  be  far  better  taste  for 
them  to  use  judgment  and  sense  in 
discussing  questions  that  concern 
their  interests  as  well  as  those  of 
the  public  and  not  indulge  in  the 
usual  billingsgate  which  cheap  graft- 
ers and  politicians  use  in  accusing 
everybody  of  treason  who  may  do 
something  that  is  not  exactly  to  their 
taste  or  in  harmony  with  their  no- 
tions. For  the  president  of  a  rail- 
road company  that  is  making  enor- 


mous dividends  and  amassing  millions 
upon  millions  of  surplus  ^s  a  result 
of  this  war  and  the  sufferings  of 
the  people  to  accuse  a  public  body 
of  treason  because  it  demands  that 
railroads  render  a  proper  service  to 
the  communities  which  are  bearing' 
the  burdens  of  the  war  and  sharing 
none  of  the  profits,  is  at  least  a  re 
flection  upon  his  good  sense  and  sin- 
cerity of  purpose. 

TUESDAY,  SEPTEMBER  11,  1917. 

A  MATTER  OF  SELF  DEFENSE. 

The  Topeka  papers  last  week  had 
rather  a  sensational  article  upon  the 
organization  of  the  Farmers'  Non- 
partisan League  in  Kansas,  stating 
that  it  was  a  movement  of  the  I.  W. 
W.  and  was  being  promoted  by  Ger- 
man influence.  It  is  customary  novf 
for  the  partisans  of  this  administra- 
tion and  the  defenders  of  its  war 
policy  to  accuse  everyone  of  treason 
who  is  not  a  sub-servient  votary  of 
the  existing  order  of  things  and  to 
denounce  them  as  pro-German.  If 
the  authors  of  the  articles  that  ap- 
peared in  Topeka  papers  had  given  a 
little  attention  to  this  movement  thej 
would  have  known  that  the  Non- 
partisan League  which  is  being  or- 
ganized by  the  farmers  throughout 
the  western  states  is  a  great  move- 
ment in  the  interest  of  the  farming 
industry  in  the  United  States. 

In  the  Dakotas  and  other  north- 
western states,  it  is  already  power- 
ful and  exerting  a  beneficial  in- 
fluence upon  the  public  affairs  of 
those  commonwealths.  The  purpose 
of  the  Non-partisan  League  is  to 
elect  men  to  office  who  will  give  the 
farmer  a  square  deal  and  not  be  con- 
trolled by  organized  wealth  and  other 
organizations  that  are  unfriendly  to 
the  agricultural  interests,  or  who 
seek  to  exploit  the  farmer  and  his 
products  for  financial  gain;  in  such 
an  organization  seems  to  be  about 
the  only  hope  left  for  the  farmers  of 
the  west.  Practically  all  of  the  legis- 
lation affecting  commerce  and  indus- 
try that  has  been  enacted  in  the  last 
few  years  in  Washington  has  been 
in  the  interest  of  dealers  in  farm 
products,  manufacturers  and  business 
men  instead  of  agriculture.  The 
present  food  bill  in  its  operations  ha.<? 
accomplished  nothing  up  to  date  ex- 


23 


cept  to  hold  down  the  price  of  wheat 
below  what  it  would  have  been  if 
such  bill  had  not  been  passed.  If 
everything-  which  the  farmer  is  com- 
pelled to  buy  was  controlled  by  the 
same  agency  and  the  prices  held 
down  in  the  same  manner,  he  would 
have  no  cause  of  complaint,  but  when 
the  things  which  he  buys  are  ad- 
vancing in  price  without  limitation 
and  the  prices  of  the  products  which 
he  has  to  sell  are  kept  down,  as  a 
matter  of  self  defense  it  becomes 
necessary  for  him  in  some  way  to 
seek  protection.  As  we  understand 
the  Non-partisan  League  it  is  in 
substance  a  pledge  on  the  part  of 
the  farmer  to  support  for  office  can- 
didates who  will  in  his  judgment  best 

epresent  the  farming  interests^ 

For  forty  years  the  railroads, 
manufacturing  concerns,  labor  organ- 
izations and  other  lines  of  industry 
and  business  have  had  organizations 
for  the  purpose  of  influencing  legis- 
lation to  the  inteuest  of  their  own 
lines  of  industry  and  business,  why 
should  not  the  farmer.  The  news- 
papers that  are  now  so  tender  and 
solicitous  of  the  welfare  of  the  rail- 
roads are  horrified  when  the  farmers 

)i  the  country  propose  to  organize  a 
Non-partisan  League  the  purpose  of 
which  is  to  support  candidates  for 
office  who  will  give  their  business  the 
attention  it  deserves  in  the  legisla- 
tion of  the  nation.  This  movement 
is  different-  from  the  old  Populist 
movement  which  was  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  political  party.  As  we  un- 
derstand the  Non-partisan  League  is 
not  a  political  party.  Its  members 
may  support  a  Democart;  or  a  Re- 
publican; or  a  Socialist.  That  will 
depend  upon  what  the  candidate 
stands  for  and  existing  conditions 
are  forcing  the  farmers  into  such 
organizations   in   self   defense. 

THURSDAY,  SEPTEMBER  13,  1917. 

IS      SLOWLY     ADMITTING      THE 
TRUTH. 

The  Kansas  City  Star  has  discov- 
ered that  the  war  department  let  a 
contract  for  a  large  number  of  sash 
for  windows  in  the  cantonments  and 
then,  after  the  sash  had  been  made, 
discovered  that  there  was  no  glass  of 
the  size  required  by  these  sash,  and 


that  it  would  be  cheaper  to  throw 
the  sash  away  or  burn  them  up  and 
have  others  made  than  to  have  glass 
made  to  fit  the  odd  sizes. 

This  is  one  of  a  number  of  gross 
mistakes  which  have  come  to  the 
Star's  attention  and  leads  it  to  de- 
mand that  a  board  be  appointed  to 
supervise  the  work  of  cabinet  officers 
so  as  to  protect  the  government  from 
such  reckless  waste  and  extravagance, 
if   not   corruption. 

Has  the  Star  any  evidence  that 
satisfies  it  that  the  contractors  for 
the  cantonments  were  not  perfectly 
agreeable  to  having  large,  wasteful 
expenditures  made?  They  get  their 
per  cent  just  the  same.  If  there  was 
a  half  million  dollars  wasted  in  that 
way  they  would  get  their  seven  or 
ten  per  cent  commission  on  it  just 
the  same  as  though  it  had  been  wise- 
ly and  properly  expended. 

The  Star  knows,  if  it  were  frank 
enough  to  admit  it,  that  the  whole 
administration  of  the  government's 
affairs  for  the  last  six  months  has 
been  one  of  incompetence,  extrava- 
gance and  corruption  beyond  descrip- 
tion. Yet  it  has  defended  the  out- 
rageous waste  at  Fort  Riley.  It  has 
denounced  vehemently  the  editor  of 
the  Journal,  because  months  ago  he 
called  the  attention  of  the  country  to 
these  facts.  After  weary  months  the 
Star  and  the  Capital  and  other 
papers  that  were  acquiessing  in  the 
demand  that  the  editor  of  this  paper 
be  sent  to  jail  for  exposing  grafl 
and  rottenness  in  public  affairs  ar& 
now  feebly  suggesting  that  thess' 
things  be  stopped,  but  fail  to  fix  ox- 
attempt  to  fix  the  responsibility  for 
the  malfeasance. 

In  due  time  they  will  be  denounc- 
ing the  awful  blunder  of  sending  our 
soldiers  on  the  battlefields  with  de- 
fective ammunition  and  demanding 
that  those  guilty  of  such  abhorrent 
neglect  or  malfeasance  be  punished 
summarily. 

These  metropolitan  papers  have 
made  some  progress.  They  are  now 
printing  extracts  from  the  speeches 
of  Hiram  Johnson,  Senator  LaFollette 
and  others  and  actually  commending 
the  attitude  of  these  patriotic  sena- 
tors in  their  efforts  to  compel  the 
men  who  are  making  millions  out  of 
this  war  to  pay  a  fair  share  of  their 


24 


war  profits   into  the   treasury   of  the 
"federal  government. 

In  the  morning-  issue  of  September 
7,  the  Capital  conceded  that  Wall 
Street  was  controlling  the  legislation 
of  the  nation,  so  far  as  the  tax  bill 
was  concerned;  but  the  editor  of  that 
paper  is  too  intelligent  not  to  know 
that  it  has  controlled  the  legislation 
of  this  country  in  every  movement 
from  a  period  antedating  the  declar- 
ation of  war. 

FRIDAY.    SEPTEMBER    14.    19177 


WHERE  DOES  MR. 
STAND. 


WILSON 


In  the  great  fight  which  a  group 
of  senators  made  in  Washington  for 
an  equitable  tax  upon  war  profits, 
they  outlined  an  issue  which  will  be 
carried  into  many  states  of  the  Union 
in  the  next  campaign. 

In  this  debate  Senator  Hiram  John- 
son declared  that  the  drafting  of  the 
young  men  of  the  country  and  the 
exemption  of  excessive  war  profits 
was  a  crime  against  the  manhood  of 
the  nation.  Senator  LaFollette  in  a 
great  speech  that  lasted  for  three 
hours  graphically  portrayed  the  in- 
famy of  the  legislation.  On  the  last 
day  Senator  Borah  who  is  one  of  the 
strong  orators  of  the  present  con- 
gress declared  that  the  people  would 
not  tolerate  tenderness  toward  the 
profits  of  speculators  in  the  flesh  and 
blood  of  the  nation. 

These  senators,  in  as  righteous  a 
cause  as  was  ever  championed  by  free 
men,  lost  and.  when  they  lost,  wrong 
triumphed.  The  Journal  enquires, 
where  was  Mr.  Wilson  while  these 
men  were  making  such  a  gallant  fight 
for  human  rights? 

When  the  declaration  of  war  was 
before  Congress  Mr.  Wilson  appeared 
and  called  for  its  immediate  passage 
and  denounced,  as  treasonable,  op- 
position to  it.  When  the  bill  for  the 
drafting  of  young  men  into  the  army 
to  be  sent  to  foreign  lands  was  pend- 
ing Mr.  Wilson  was  there  demanding 
its  enactment.  When  the  fight  is 
made  to  conscript  wealth — to  take  a 
reasonable  portion  of  the  war  profits 
from  the  munition  vendors  and  those 
who  are  amassing  great  wealth  as 
a  direct  result  of  the  war — Mr.  Wil- 
son is  silent  and  Democratic  senators 
such  as  Gore  of  Oklahoma  and  Hollis 


of  New  Hampshire  who  stood  with 
Johnson  and  LaFollette  and  Borah 
are  being  branded  as  traitors  to  the 
administration.  Senator  Gore  is 
being  threatened  with  defeat  in  his 
campaign  for  re-election  because  he 
insists  that  men  who  are  making  for- 
tunes out  of  this  awful  conflict  shall . 
bear  a  just  portion  of  the  burdens 
of  taxation.  War  journals  are  ridi- 
culing these  patriotic  men.  but  when 
the  people  come  to  understand  the 
real  issues  involved  in  this  fight  they 
will  be  overwhelmingly  sustained. 

MONDAY,  SEPTEMBER  17,  1917? 

WILL  BE  THE  VICTIMS. 

Mr.  Hoover  the  sole  achievement  of 
whose  official  efforts  since  he  began 
operating  in  the  United  States  has 
been  to  reduce  the  price  of  the 
farmers'  wheat  fifty  or  sixty  cents 
per  bushel,  now  proposes  to  take  hold 
of  the  packing  situation.  He  evi- 
dently thinks  that  the  farmers  are 
receiving  too  much  for  their  live 
stock. 

In  his  first  proceeding  he  guar- 
anteed to  the  millers  and  the  manu- 
facturers of  wheat  products  a  higher 
profit  than  they  ordinarily  expect  to 
obtain.  Then  he  fixed  the  maximum 
amount  at  which  wheat  should  be 
sold,  making  the  dealers  in  wheat 
safe  from  loss  and  imposing  all  risk 
upon  the  producers.  Kansas  will 
have  this  year,  so  our  State  Agricul 
tural  Department  says,  about  forty 
million  bushels  of  wheat.  Consider- 
ing our  acreage  on  an  average  crop 
we  should  have  had  three  times  that 
amount.  Following  the  lines  of  ac- 
counting that  are  applied  to  every 
other  business,  it  has  cost  the  wheat 
producers  of  Kansas  this  year  from 
$2.00  to  $2.50  per  bushel  to  produce 
every  bushel  of  wheat  that  has  been 
raised  and  probably  it  has  cost  the 
people  of  the  United  States  on  an 
average  fully  $2.00  or  niore,  so  that 
Mr.  Hoover  has  said  to  the  Ameri- 
can farmer  that  he  should  not  have 
more  than  cost  and  in  many  cases 
less  than  cost  for  his  product,  but 
that  the  man  who  handles  the 
product  after  it  leaves  the  farm 
should  be  guaranteed  a  safe  and  de- 
sirable profit.  The  result  is  that 
the  consumers  of  bread  are  passing 
exactly  the  same  as  they  did  before 


the  price  of  wheat  was  reduced  and 
when  he  begins  to  operate '  on  the 
meat  market  the  livestock  men  of 
this  state  may  expect  a  reduction  in 
the  price  of  livestock  but  the  con- 
sumers of  packing  house  products 
will  never  know  from  the  prices  they 
pay  that  a  reduction  has  been  made. 
We  were  somewhat  apprehensive 
before  this  food  bill  was  passed  as  to 
its  effect.  We  had  already  had  an 
example  of  the  voluntary  services 
of  millionaires  such  as  Mr.  Hoover 
planned  to  call  around  him  in  the 
advisory  board  which  the  President 
called  together  in  Washington  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war.  From  the  date 
these  men  met  to  the  present  time 
they  have  been  exploiting  the  Amer- 
ican people  for  their  own  gain  in 
the  most  high-handed  and  infamous 
manner  that  jj^s  ever  been  practiced 
in  the  history  of  civilized  nations. 
We  have  frequently  described  in  the 
Journal  their  methods  and  when  Mr. 
Hoover  calls  together  the  American 
captains  of  industry  to  help  in  ad- 
ministering the  food  law,  we  may 
expect  the  men  who  have  amassed 
enormous  fortunes  from  dealing  in 
farm  products  of  the  United  States  to 
control  the  policy  of  the  food  ad- 
ministration and  the  victims  of  their 
avarice  will  be  the  American  farmer 
and  the  consumer  of  small  means. 

TUESDAY,  SEPTEMBER  18,  19177 

WILL   NOT   BE   SO   EASILY   MIS- 
LEAD. 

Every  political  grafter  who  has  his 
hands  into  the  United  States  Treas- 
ury and  wants  to  distract  attention 
from  his  criminal  operations  declares 
that  he  is  helping  the  United  States 
to  win  the  war  and  denounces  as  un- 
patriotic criticism  of  his  methods. 
Every  railroad  that  wants  to  avoid 
giving  the  people  proper  service  or 
to  increase  its  rates  and  impose  upon 
public  credulity  raises  the  cry  that  it 
is  doing  its  bit  to  win  the  war  and 
the  public  must  help  it.  Every  dema- 
gogic politician  who  is  the  hand-tool 
of  predatory  wealth  and  special  in- 
terests frantically  declares  that  he 
is  determined  to  do  his  bit  in  help- 
ing win  the  war.  Every  metropoli- 
tan newspaper  that  is  a  friend  of 
special  privilege  or  controlled  by 
Wall  Street  capital  is  widely  calling 


upon  the  public  to  overlook  extrava- 
gances and  if  need  be,  corruption  in 
public  affairs,  that  we  may  win  the 
war.  The  munition  vendors  and 
beneficiaries  of  army  contracts  who 
are  amassing  millions  out  of  the  ex- 
travagances of  the  present  adminis- 
tration, are  vehemently  declaring  that 
they  are  determined  to  do  their  bit 
in  winning  the  war  and  when  pa- 
triotic public  servants  like  Senators 
Johnson  of  California,  Borah  of 
Idaho,  LafoUette  of  Wisconsin,  Gore 
of  Oklahoma,  and  Hollis  of  New 
Hampshire,  demand  that  they  give  a 
reasonable  amount  of  their  exclusive- 
ly war  profits  to  sustain  the  govern- 
ment in  the  financial  crisis  which  it  is 
rapidly  approaching,  they  denounce 
them  as  traitors. 

If  this  war  is  won  it  will  be  by 
the  sacrifices  of  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  American  people,  not  only  of 
their  blood,  but  of  their  substance, 
and  the  most  infamous  thing  in 
American  history  is  the  exhibition 
now  going  on  in  Washington  in  which 
the  grafters  and  politicians  are  work- 
ing in  absolute  accord.  What  this 
country  needs  is  more  men  in  public 
life  like  Johnson  and  his  co-workers 
and  fewer  sniveling  time  servers  like 
Helvering  of  this  district  and  Shouse 
of  the  seventh.  Here  at  home  the 
state  is  full  of  politicians  of  the  same 
type  who  hope  to  obtain  further  polit- 
ical honors  by  pleasing  the  exploiters 
of  the  nation's  wealth  and  blood 
without  letting  the  people  find  it  out. 
They  think  they  are  fooling  the  rank 
and  file  of  our  population.  We  •  be- 
lieve, however,  that  the  sturdy  com- 
mon sense  of  the  citizen  of  this  state 
will  assert  itself  in  the  next  election 
and  that  they  will  not  be  so  mislead 
by  high  sounding  phrases  and  hypo- 
critical pretense  as  they  were  last 
year. 


SATURDAY,  SEPTEMBER  22,  1917. 

THE  MOST  PATRIOTIC   SERVICE. 

The  Journal  has  severely  criticised 
the  incompetence,  profligacy  and  cor- 
ruption that  now  prevails  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  our  national  affairs. 
Almost  every  day  we  are  met  with 
this  statement:  "We  believe  what 
you  say  is  true,  but  you  ought  not 
to  say  it  now,  because  we  are  at  war 
and  any  criticism  of  the  Government 


26 


encourages  the  enemy."  In  other 
words,  it  is  contended  that  when  our 
country  is  involved  in  war  it  is  not 
expedient  to  denounce  gi-aft  and  cor- 
ruption in  public  affairs. 

We  do  not  believe  that  these 
friends  realize  the  purport  of  their 
attitude.  It  means  that  during  a 
state  of  war  profligacy,  extravagance 
and  dishonesty  can  run  rampant  in 
government  affairs,  and  he  who  ex- 
poses it,  and  not  the  thief  is  the  pub- 
lic  enemy. 

We  cannot  concur  in  this  view. 
The  man  who  cheats  the  government 
in  time  of  war,  who  takes  advantage 
of  the  conflict  that  is  now  going  on 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth  to  rob 
the  public,  should  be  executed  as  a 
traitor  to  his  country,  and  the  men 
who  expose  the  graft  and  rottenness, 
instead  of  being  abused  for  it,  ought 
to  be  commended  by  every  good 
citizen. 

To  illustrate.  A  contract  has  been 
let  to  three  companies  for  the  manu- 
facture of  rifles.  Technically,  it  was 
approved  by  the  Secretary  of  War 
upon  the  recommendation  of  General 
Crozier.  According  to  the  testimony 
of  both  the  Secretary  of  War  and 
General  Crozier,  it  was  in  fact  ap- 
proved by  them  upon  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  Council  of  Na- 
tional Defense,  headed  by  Mr.  Scott 
of  Cleveland,  0, 

This  Council  for  National  Defense 
recommended,  and  it  was  approved 
by  the  Secretary  of  War,  that  these 
companies,  the  Remington  Arms 
Company,  the  Remington  Arms- 
Union  Metallic  Cartridge  Company, 
and  the  Winchester  Repeating  Arms 
Company,  be  given  the  contract  to 
manufacture  the  rifles  for  the  United 
States  Government  at  cost  plus  ten 
per  cent.  They  were  allowed  six  per 
cent  on  the  value  of  the  plants  as 
a  part  of  the  cost  of  manufacturing, 
and  then  in  addition  given  a  net 
profit  of  ten  per  cent  on  the  total 
cost  of  manufacture,  whatever  that 
might  be.  They  are  not  only  guar- 
anteed six  per  cent  on  the  value  of 
their  plants  after  all  expense  of 
operation  and  manufacture  has  been 
provided  for,  but  in  addition  a  bonus 
of  ten  per  cent  on  all  the  cost,  in- 
cluding the  six  per  cent. 

In  an  investigation  before  the  Com- 
mittee    on     Appropriations     of     the 


House,  it  appeared  that  upon  this 
contract  these  companies  would  make 
from  thirty  to  fifty  per  cent  every 
year  on  the  capital  invested,  over 
and  above  the  six  per  cent.  The  full 
profit  depends  upon  the  amount  of 
work  they  turn  out  and  upon  their 
skill  in  inflating  the  cost.  That  is, 
their  profits  will  be  not  only  six  per 
cent  on  every  dollar  invested,  which 
is  guaranteed  as  an  expense,  but 
from  thirty  to  fifty  per  cent  per 
annum  in  addition.  It  is  alleged  by 
some  that  when  the  contracts  are 
completed  this  ten  per  cent  will  ag- 
gregate from  three  to  four  times  as 
much  as  the  entire  cost  of  their 
plant.  That  is,  they  are  not  only 
guaranteed  six  per  cent  on  their  in- 
vestment, but  vdll  be  given  in  addi- 
tion a  gratuity  of  three  or  four  times 
the  value  of  the  plants. 

When  Mr.  Scott,  Chairman  of  the 
Council  for  National  Defense,  was 
interrogated  about  this  matter,  he 
said  he  thought  it  was  a  good  con- 
tract because  the  cost  would  be  less 
than  the  amount  the  Allies  had  paid 
for  the  arms  they  bought  in  the 
United  States.  That  is,  if  these  com- 
panies do  not  rob  us  as  much  as  they 
did  the  Allies  before  we  got  into 
the  war,  Scott  thinks  we  are  getting 
off  well. 

Now  we  ask  our  good  friends  who 
question  the  expedience  of  our  criti- 
cism, how  can  anyone  with  conscience 
ask  an  American  citizen  to  approve 
of  such  an  administration  of  public 
affairs?  If  this  profligacy  continues 
during  Mr.  Wilson's  term  or  while 
the  war  lasts,  this  nation  will  be 
hopelessly  bankrupt,  and  all  sense  of 
moral  obligation  to  the  public  will 
be  destroyed.  There  never  has  been 
any  government  which  tolerated  such 
corruption  that  has  not  gone  down. 

We  believe  that  our  country  today 
has  reached  the  most  critical  period 
in  its  history.  We  are  a  rich  and 
powerful  nation.  We  can  defeat  any 
foreign  foe  which  may  attack  us. 
But  if  we  give  way  to  the  avarice 
of  the  times  and  tolerate  gross  in- 
conjpetency,  corruption  and  shame- 
less graft  in  our  public  affairs,  the 
end  of  our  national  existence  will 
soon  be  reached.  The  most  patriotic 
service  that  any  American  citizen 
can  today  render  his  country  is  to 
demand  that  honesty  and  efficiency  be 


27 


restored  in  the  management  of  its 
affairs.  He  owes  this  to  himself  as  a 
citizen,  to  his  country  as  a  patriot, 
and  to  the  boys  that  are  sent  to  the 
front  to  carry  the  country's  flag  on 
fields  of  battle.  They  should  be  made 
to  feel  that  an  honest  and  efficient 
government  is  behind  them,  not  one 
seething  with  corruption. 

THURSDAY,  OCTOBER  4,  1917. 

THE   REVENUE  BILL. 

The  revenue  bill  as  agreed  upon 
by  the  conferees  is  a  complete  vic- 
tory for  the  plunder-bund. 

While  the  conferees  increased  the 
amount  of  tax  that  will  be  raised 
some  i?300,000,000  over  that  carried 
by  the  senate  bill,  they  did  not  in- 
crease the  excess  profits  tax,  but  im- 
posed a  3-cent  postage  tax  on  letters, 
a  tax  on  mortgages  and  evidences  of 
indebtedness  on  telegrams,  telephone 
messages,  railroad  fares,  amusement 
tickets,  etc.,  leaving  the  men  and 
corporations  that  are  making  fabu- 
'  luus  sums  out  of  war  profits  to  enjoy 
their  ill-gotten  gain. 

The  proposition  made  by  Senator 
Johnson  of  California  when  the  bill 
was  before  the  senate  was  to  take 
the  average  profit  of  a  firm  or  in- 
dividual for  three  years  before  the 
war,  in  any  event  not  less  than  six 
per  cent,  and  to  exempt  that  from 
any  excess  profit  tax,  but  to  impose 
a  tax  of  eighty  per  cent  on  t^e  excess 
over  and  above  the  average  profits 
before  the  war. 

To   illustrate:     The   E.   L   du   Pont 
Powder  company,  which  is  the  pow- 
der trust  and  controls  the  manufac- 
'     ture    and    sale    of    explosives    in    the 
United  States,  made  an  average  profit 
before    the    war    of    something    over 
,^    $4,000,000  per  annum,  which  is  more 
t    than  six  per  cent  on  the  capital  in- 
l     vested.     Last   year    its   profits    were 
f     $82,000,000. 

The  amendment  of  Senator  John- 
son would  have  deducted  the  $4,000,- 
,  000  from  the  $82,000,000  leaving 
f  $78,000,00,  which  is  the  profit  due 
Wholly  to  the  war,  and  taking  eighty 
per  cent  of  that  for  the  government 
which  would  still  leave  the  powder 
company  a  profit  of  approximately 
$20,000,000  more  than  it  made  on  an 
average  before  the  war.  The  same 
principle  would  have  been  applied  to 


all  other  war  profits,  which  would 
have  guaranteed  to  every  concern 
twenty  per  cent  more  profits  than 
those  made  before  the  war  began,  or 
than  the  normal  peace  profits. 

This  is  what  Great  Britain  does; 
but  Senator  Johnson's  amendment 
was  overwhelmingly  defeated  in  the 
senate  and  the  house  conferees  ac- 
quiesced in  the  senate's  action.  The 
administration  was  perfectly  satis- 
fied with  the  results,  or  in  other 
words  approved  the  action  of  the  sen- 
ate because  every  administration 
leader  in  the  senate  voted  against 
the  Johnson  amendment;  and  while 
we  are  taxing  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  people  in  every  conceivable  way, 
we  have  refused  to  make  the  men 
who  are  coining  millions  out  of  the 
blood  of  our  sons  pay  a  fair  share 
of  their  excessive  war  profits  into 
the  public  treasury. 

We  are  spending  more  money  in 
this  war  than  any  other  nation  today 
that  is  involved  in  it  and  we  are  levy- 
ing the  lowest  taxes  on  the  war 
profits. 

We  feel  that  it  is  the  duty  of 
every  patriotic  American  citizen  to 
hold  to  an  account  every  senator  and 
congressman  and  President  Wilson 
for  this  inqiuitous  measure  that 
places  not  only  the  bitrden  of  this 
war  upon  the  masses  of  the  people, 
but  permits  ill-gotten  wealth  to 
escape    a   fair    share    of    the   burden. 

^SATURDAY,  OCTOBER  6,  1917. 

AS  GUILTY  AS  THE  THIEF. 

Thousands  of  homes  in  Kansas  to- 
day are  grief-stricken  because  of  the 
chairs  made  vacant  by  the  absence  of 
sons  whose  welfare  is  dearer  to 
many  than  life  itself.  These  boys 
have  voluntarily  or  by  the  command 
of  the  government  gone  into  the 
United  States  army  to  represent  this 
country  in  the  great  European  con- 
flict. 

Whether  they  go  voluntarily  or  at 
the  command  of  the  government,  they 
are  entitled  to  all  the  comforts  and 
all  the  protection  it  is  possible  for 
the  government  to  give  them,  and  no 
sacrifice  which  those  of  us  at  home 
can  make  for  their  welfare  should 
be  spared. 

The  people  of  Kansas  and  the  na- 
tion are  unanimous  in  the  desire  that 


28 


the  army  shall  be  equipped  with  every 
possible  facility  for  effective  work 
and  that  the  soldiers'  life,  hard  and 
exacting  as  it  must  be,  shall  be  made 
as  comfortable  as  possible.  No  ex- 
penditure of  money  should  be  with- 
held that  is  necessary  to  provide  such 
facilities  and  comforts,  but  the  obli- 
gations which  the  people  of  the 
United  States  have  assumed  in  the 
support  and  maintenance  of  this 
army  make  it  incumbent  upon  every 
public  officer  concerned  to  be  ef- 
ficient and#  honest  in  the  discharge 
of  his  duties. 

To  waste  the  government's  re- 
sources, to  misappropriate  its  money 
and  to  make  useless  and  unnecessary 
expenditures  mean  that  this  army 
will  not  be  properly  equipped  and 
supported,  and  that  the  people  whose 
sons  compose  the  army  and  upon 
whose  shoulders  rests  the  burden  of 
paying  the  taxes  to  sustain  it  are 
being  grossly  mistreated  by  officials 
whose  duty  it  is  to  protect  them. 
The  attitude  which  administration 
journals  so  flppantly  take  that  any 
criticism  of  maladministration  must 
not  be  tolerated  is  infamous. 

The  young  soldiers  at  Fort  Riley 
are  suffering  today  because  of  mis- 
management and  incompetency.  Mil- 
lions of  the  public  money,  which  is 
to  be  provided  by  the  most  onerous 
taxes,  have  been  wasted  in  the  most 
profligate  manner,  not  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  United  S^tates  army  but 
to  enrich  an  army  of  grafters  who 
like  vultures  are  hanging  about  the 
camps  and  hovering  about  the  capi- 
tal of  the  nation  expecting  to  gorge 
themselves  out  of  the  fabulous  appro- 
priations that  are  being  made  by 
congress. 

When  rottenness  in  the  expendi- 
tures of  the  nation  is  exposed,  ad- 
ministration organs  at  once  cry  out 
that  it  is  giving  aid  and  encourage- 
ment to  the  enemy,  and  that  regard- 
less of  the  incompetency,  the  crimi- 
nality, or  the  perfidy  of  our  govern- 
mental officials  at  this  time  silence 
should  be  maintained. 

The  facts  are  that  the  criminal 
who  commits  the  offense  is  the  real 
traitor  and  those  who  would  con- 
ceal it  or  denounce  his, exposure  are 
as  guilty  as  the  thief  himself. 


MONDAY,  OCTOBER  8,  1917. 

BETRAYS     THE     INTERESTS     OF 
THE  COUNTRY. 

The  Red  Men  are  to  be  commended 
for  the  position  they  took  in  their 
state  convention  at  Topeka  in  regard 
to  the  drafting  of  wealth. 

If  you  can  draft  a  young  man,  take 
him  from  his  farm  or  business, 
leave  his  wife  and  children  helpless, 
compel  him  to  sell  all  of  his  hold- 
ings and  practically  close  up  his  busi- 
ness indefinitely  at  great  loss  and 
take  him  to  France  to  risk  his  health, 
limb  and  life  for  the  government 
why  should  we  not  be  able  to  take 
the  excessive  wealth  of  men,  which 
they  do  not  need,  to  pay  the  finan- 
cial burdens  of  the  war? 

But  the  most  radical  proposals 
made  in  congress  were  not  to  con- 
fiscate the  wealth,  but  to  take  80  per 
cent  of  the  exclusively  war  profits. 
Congress  and  the  administration  re- 
fused to  assess  a  tax  of  80  per  cent 
on  the  exclusively  war  profits;  and 
during  the  next  year  while  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  the  best  young  men 
in  the  land  are  sacrificing  everything 
for  the  country,  the  munition  makers 
and  exploiters,  who  are  growing  rich 
out  of  this  war,  will  continue  to  reap 
their  harvest  of  blood-money,  thanks 
to  the  present  congress  and  the  na- 
tional administration  in  Washington. 

The  steel  trust,  whose  profits  last 
year  were  approximately  four  times 
its  normal  peace  profits,  has  about 
one-third  of  that  excess  assessed  for 
taxes.  The  same  is  true  of  the  pack- 
ing houses,  the  shoe  manufacturers, 
the  gun  maker  and  other  firms,  in- 
dividuals or  corporations  that  furnish 
war  materials.  For  them  the  war 
is  still  a  source  of  inexhaustable 
profits. 

The  clerk  in  the  store,  the  laborer 
on  the  street  or  in  the  field,  who 
struggles  and  toils  for  the  comforts 
and  necessities  of  life,  meets  the 
tax-gatherer  everywhere.  His  net 
earnings  are  reduced  far  below  what 
they  were  before  the  war,  while  the 
profiteers  from  war  materials  ar^ 
making    their    untold    millions. 

The  average  citizen  will  bear  his 
burden  uncomplainingly.  He  will 
make  any  sacrifices  which  a  patriotic 
citizen  should  for  the  welfare  of  his 


29 


country,  but  he  has  a  right  to  de- 
mand and  it  is  his  duty  to  demand 
that  no  man  be  permitted  to  amass 
enormous  fortunes  out  of  the  war, 
and  any  public  official,  whether  he 
be  in  the  legislative  or  executive 
department  of  the  government  who 
does  not  favor  taking  exclusively  war 
profits  for  the  support  of  the  govern- 
ment betrays  the  interests  of  the 
public  and  should  be  repudiated  by 
the  people. 

_  TUESDAY,  OCTOBER  9,  1917. 

HAS   NO   RIGHT   TO    EXPECT   IT. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  criticises  the  ad- 
ministration severely  because  eight 
months  have  passed  since  we  de- 
clared war  and  nothing  has  been 
done  except  inefficient  preliminaries 
and  excessive  talk.  Manifestoes  are 
not  what  the  Colonel  wants  and  he 
seems  to  be  growing  weary  of  them. 

But  the  Colonel  must  reflect  a 
while  and  permit  his  indignation  to 
cool.  He  should  remember  that  the 
president  made  war  on  Mexico  twice 
before  he  declared  war  against  Ger- 
many. He  captured  Vera  Cruz  and 
actually  shed  some  blood;  and  then 
had  the  troops,  after  staying  there 
a  few  months,  get  aboard  the  trans- 
ports and  come  back  home.  He  sent 
them  there  to  compel  Huerta  to  sa- 
lute the  flag  and  brought  them  back 
apparently  because  he  would  not  do 
it.  Then  when  some  Mexican  bandits 
plundered  an  American  village,  he 
sent  the  American  army  with  a  flour- 
ish of  trumpets  and  the  expendi- 
ture of  hundred  of  millions  of  dollars 
into  Mexico.  General  Pershing  led 
the  expedition.  As  the  Colonel  will 
I  recall,  when  Pershing  got  near  the 
enemy  he  was  ordered  to  stop  and 
was  held  there  inert  for  seven  months 
and  then  ordered  back  home. 

We  read  in  the  press  dispatches 
that  the  president  now  has  Colonel 
House,  this  mysterious  Wall  Street 
friend  of  his,  and  Justice  Brandeis 
as  a  committee  to  study  peace  terms; 
and  the  Colonel  need  not  be  sur- 
prised, if  after  we  have  spent  the 
twenty-one  billion  dollars  that  have 
been  appropriated  and  thousands  of 
the  administration's  friends  have  been 
given  most  lucrative  public  employ- 
ment in  the  army  and  in  other  official 
positions  and  have  made  hundreds  of 


millions  out  of  the  war  contracts 
that  the  president  should  conclude 
that  peace  is  better  than  war  and 
order  the  American  army  to  come 
back  from  France  as  he  did  when 
he  sent  Funston  to  Vera  Cruz  and 
Pershing  into  Mexico. 

If  the  tax  bill  had  taken  the  war 
profits  from  the  men  who  are  mak- 
ing billions  out  of  the  war  we  would 
now  have  thousands  of  these  war 
profiteers  crying  for  peace  instead  of 
demanding  the  impeachment  of 
Gronna,  LaFollette  and  others. 

The  Colonel  should  remember  that 
it  has  not  been  the  habit  of  the  presi- 
dent to  stand  for  any  one  policy  a 
great  length  of  time.  He  was  for 
peace  a  year  ago.  Then  he  changed 
and  became  very  much  for  war,  and 
has  been  in  that  state  of  mind  since 
last  March.  Does  the  Colonel  expect 
the  president  to  stand  for  that  policy 
much  longer?  If  so,  he  may  be  dis- 
appointed. 

There  are  some  things,  however, 
that  this  administration  is  certain  to 
do  and  do  them  effectively,  viz:  to 
waste  the  public  money,  create  thou- 
sands and  possibly  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  useless  offices  to  take  c^re 
of  its  partisan  friends,  write  beauti- 
ful notes'  and  deliver  eloquent  ad- 
dresses. 

Under  the  circumstances  has 
Colonel  Roosevelt  any  right  to  ex- 
pect a  heroic  or  energetic  adminis- 
tration of  public  affairs  or  the  prose- 
cution of  the  war  with  eflfectiveness 
until  there  is  a  radical  change  in  the 
personnel  of  our  administrative  of- 
ficers ? 

THURSDAY,  OCTOBER  11,  19177 

DANGEROUS  SIGNS  OF  THE 
TIMES. 

The  special  session  of  Congress 
that  was  called  to  declare  war  upon 
Germany  has  adjourned.  It  seems  to 
be  proud  of  its  record,  and  that  of 
which  it  boasts  the  most  is  the  un- 
precedented appropriations  that  it  has 
made. 

It  has  the  proud  distinction  of 
having  appropriated  a  larger  amount 
of  money  than  was  ever  appro- 
priated before  by  any  legislative  body 
in  a  like  period  of  time.  It  has 
also  passed  the  largest  specific  ap- 
propriation   bills,    and    probably    has 


30 


levied  more  onerous  taxes  upon  the 
activities  of  the  people  than  were 
ever  levied  by  any  congress  that 
preceded  it. 

The  country  will  suffer  from  its  • 
reckless  extravagance  for  generations 
to  come.  It  was  a  congress  without 
leadership  that  simply  recorded  the 
will  of  a  dictator  and  was  as  sub- 
servient to  the  executive  as  was  ever 
any  Mexican  congress  to  Diaz  in  the 
days  of  his  power.  Any  member  of 
the  body,  charged  with  the  responsi- 
bility of  appropriating  money  and 
levying  taxes,  who  dared  to  criticize, 
or  even  hesitated  to  obey  the  wishes 
of  the  president  was  at  once  de- 
nounced as  a"  traitor,  and  so  fearful 
were  the  members  of  the  legislative 
branch  of  the  government  of  such 
criticism  they  hastened  to  do  what- 
ever the  executive  indicated  he 
wanted  done,  and  in  practically  every 
instance  failed  to  inquire  as  to  its 
wisdom  or  pass  judgment  upon  its 
desirability. 

If  future  American  congresses  are 
to  be  simply  the  abject  tools  of  the 
executive,  then  we  had  better  change 
our  form  of  government  from  a  re- 
public with  three  coordinate  branches 
to  a  dictatorship  with  one  supreme 
head,  which,  of  course,  would  mean 
the  end  of  representative  government. 
However,  we  propose  to  fight  for  the 
preservation  of  the  republic  and  the 
independence  of  the  representatives 
of  the  people. 

"SATURDAY,   OCTOBER   13,   19177 

PRODUCER  AND  POLITICS. 

Our  esteemed  townsman  and  co- 
laborer,  the  Honorable  Maurice  Mc- 
Auliffe,  has  called  a  meeting  of  the 
wheat  growers  for  Wednesday,  Octo- 
ber 17,  at  Kansas  City,  Kansas,  to 
consider  the  situation  as  to  wheat, 
and  distinctly  announced  that  no 
political  discussion  will  be  permitted. 

We  would  like  to  know  what  is 
troubling  the  wheat  producers,  today, 
if  it  is  not  the  political  situation.  If 
politics  had  not  interfered  with  the 
price  of  wheat,  the  wheat  growers 
would  have  had  no  complaint.  Be- 
fore Mr.  Hoover  reduced  the  price, 
they  were  getting  a  normal  price 
measured  by  the  price  of  other 
products. 


The  administration,  so  the  press 
dispatches  say,  is  greatly  disap- 
pointed at  the  amount  of  wheat  that 
is  being  brought  to  market  and  are 
accusing  the  farmers  of  treason. 
That  is,  when  an  Oklahoma  or  Kan 
sas  farmer  has  wheat  for  which  he 
can  get  from  $1.80  to  $1.90  per 
bushel  by  hauling  it  to  market  and 
who  will  have  to  pay  for  feed  for 
his  live  stock  from  $1.90  to  $2.25  a 
bushel  for  corn,  depending  upon  his 
locality,  and  haul  it  from  the  mar- 
ket home,  he  is  accused  of  treason 
because  he  does  not  haul  his  wheat 
off  and  sell  it  and  buy  corn  at  a 
higher  price  and  haul  it  home  to  feed 
his  stock;  and  he  is  threatened  with 
confiscation  of  his  property  for  lack 
of  patriotism. 

When  Mr.  McAuliffe  says  that  he 
wants  a  conference  of  wheat  growers, 
but  that  politics  must  not  be  men- 
tioned, we  suppose  his  purpose  is  to 
discuss  the  condition  of  the  soil  and 
the  weather. 

The  State  Journal  of  October  1 
has  an  article  headed  "Kansas  Farm- 
ers to  Force  Government  to  Seize  all 
Wheat.  There  is  little  doubt  that 
they  are  hoarding.  Prices  may  be  set 
by  grain  corporation.  Loyalty  of 
soldiers  of  the  soil  being  questioned." 

Then  it  goes  on  and  demonstrates 
that  there  is  not  as  much  wheat 
being  marketed  now  as  there  was  last 
year,  concludes  that  the  farmers 
are  hoarding  and  makes  a  general  at- 
tack upon  the  Kansas  farmer. 

While  riding  on  a  train  a  few  days 
ago  we  overheard  a  conversation  by 
some  gentlemen  seated  across  the 
aisle.  One  of  them  appeared  to  be 
a  dealer  in  oil  stocks,  another  one 
was  a  railroad  man,  another  ap- 
peared to  be  a  merchant,  and  the 
fourth,  as  near  as  could  be  gathered 
from  the  conversation,  was  a  capi- 
talist or  speculator. 

They  were  unanimous  in  condemn- 
ing the  farmer  as  being  a  selfish  hog, 
unpatriotic  and  devoid  of  the  fine 
impulses  that  are  worthy  of  an 
American  citizen,  because  he  was  not 
satisfied  with  the  price  which  the 
government  had  fixed  for  his  wheat, 
and  talked  very  knowingly  of  the 
great  profits  being  made  and  the 
opulence  in  which  the  Kansas 
farmer  is  living.  These  men,  none 
of  whom  probably  knew  what  labor 


31 


was  or  had  ever  endured  any  hard- 
ships or  struggled  against  the  ad- 
versity of  climate  in  order  to  make 
a  living  or  to  acquire  what  prop- 
erty they  may  have,  indulged  freely 
in  unmeasured  criticism  of  the  men 
who  have  made  the  wealth  of  this 
state  and  transformed  it  from  a 
ilesert  to  a  garden  spot. 

They  did  not  take  into  considera- 
tion the  years  of  failure,  the  long, 
toilsome  labor  which  the  farmer  has 
to  go  through  month  after  month 
and  year  after  year  in  order  to  make 
liome  life  bearable  upon  the  farm. 
His  losses  due  to  storms  and  stress 
of  weather  and  failure  they  forgot 
and  only  thought  of  some  isolated 
case  where  he  turns  his  crop  upon 
a  fine  market  and  makes  a  profit  for 
that  particular  season.  In  the  food 
regulation  which  Mr.  Hoover  is  now 
carrying  on  the  only  man  who 
handles  the  food  products  of  America 
who  is  not  guaranteed  a  profit  is  the 
man  who  produces  them,  and .  when 
he  complains  that  the  prices  are  not 
compensatory,  taking  into  considera- 
tion the  losses  he  has  incurred  in 
order  to  produce  his  crop,  he  is 
denounced  by  the  men  who  live  by 
speculating  on  his  toil  as  guilty  of 
treason. 

The  safest,  soundest  and  most 
economical  and  enduring  civilization 
that  mankind  has  yet  produced  has 
been  that  which  grows  out  of  the 
pursuit  of  agriculture  and  its  allied 
industries;  and  it  is  an  unfortunate 
period  for  American  history  when 
the  farmer  who  produces  the  products 
of  foed  and  clothing  for  mankind  is 
derided  by  the  men  who  live  as  toll 
takers  and  produce  nothing  for  the 
benefit  of  the  human  race.  If  farm- 
ing is  such  an  opulent  and  profitable 
business  why  won't  they  go  into  it. 
There  are  millions  of  acres  of  idle 
land  waiting  for  them.  The  reason 
they  do  not  go  into  the  business  is 
that  they  have  to  work  too  hard  for 
what  they  get. 


SATURDAY,  OCTOBER  27,  1917. 

LORD  NORTHCLIFFE'S  SPEECH. 

Lord  Northcliffe's  speech  at  Kan- 
sas City  before  the  editors  on  Thurs- 
day afternoon  was  a  remarkably 
frank  expression  of  his  views  as  to 
the  general  conduct  of  the  war,  and 


a  somewhat  blunt  but  much  merited 
criticism  of  American  newspapers. 

If  the  editor  of  the  Journal  had 
delivered  the  speech  and  applied  the 
criticisms  made  by  Northcliflfe  on 
general  war  policies  directly  to 
Amercau  affairs  he  would  have  been 
denounced  throughout  the  nation  by 
the  administration  press  as  guilty  of 
treason.  Yet  we  are  pleased  to  note 
that  the  Baron's  criticism  has  been 
received  kindly  on  the  whole  by 
newhpapers  that  have  heretofore  de- 
clared that  any  criticism  of  the  ad- 
ministration in  power  in  time  of  war 
regardless  of  the  wisdom  or  folly  of 
its  acts,  was  treason.  In  fact  the 
most  useful  patriot  is  he  who  cour- 
ageously and  intelligently  points  out 
to  the  administration  its  blunders  and 
mistakes. 

It  will  be  remembered  by  the  in- 
telligent American  reader  that  Lord 
Northcliffe,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  was  threatened  by  the  English 
Government  with  imprisonment.  In- 
deed, Premier  Asquith  went  so  far 
as  to  declare  that  unless  he  stopped 
his  criticism  of  the  Government  his 
papers  would  be  suppressed.  But 
Northcliffe  did  not  stop  his  criticism. 
He  pointed  out  the  utter  inadequacy 
of  the  English  antiquated  arms  and 
munitions.  He  informed  the  British 
public  of  the  awful  disasters  and  mis- 
takes attending  the  military  cam- 
paigns. Hfe  forced  a  reorganiation  of 
both  the  army  and  the  admiralty,  and 
ultimately  the  entire  administration 
of  British  affairs.  This  he  did,  not 
as  a  traitor,  but  as  the  greatest 
patriot  which  England  had  at  that 
disastrous  period  of  its  experience. 

If  the  United  States  had  a  few  edi- 
tors of  great  metropolitan  papers  as 
courageous,  as  bold  in  expressidn, 
and  as  penetrating  in  seeing  into  the 
defects  of  our  administration  as 
Northcliffe  was  in  his  discussion  of 
the  mistakes  of  Great  Britain,  we 
would  have  avoided  the  awful  waste 
that  has  attended  every  move  that 
our  Government  has  made  since  the 
war  began.  But  the  American  met- 
ropolitan papers,  instead  of  demand- 
ing economy,  honesty  and  intelli- 
gence in  the  administration  of  our 
national  affairs,  have  denounced  and 
assailed  every  man  who  has  seen  fit 
to  criticise  administrative  acts,  which 
privately  the  editors  of  all  these  met- 


32 


ropolitan  newspapers  admit  were  in- 
efficient, in  some  cases  corrupt,  and 
in    almost    every    respect    inetfective. 

We  do  not  agree  with  a  number  of 
the  positions  of  Lord  NorthclifFe,  but 
we  commend  his  address  to  the  care- 
ful consideration  of  every  intelli- 
gent American  citizen  who  wants  his 
country  to  succeed  in  the  tremendous 
undertaking  in  which  it  is  now  en- 
gaged. 

We  especially  commend  the  covert 
criticism  of  .the  sensational  and 
nauseating  literature  which  fills  the 
American  press  today.  The  metro- 
politan papers  and  many  of  the 
smaller  dailies  exaggerate  every 
slight  victory  or  success  attending 
the  Allied  armies  and  minimize  the 
calamities  which  befall  them.  North- 
cliffe  pointed  out  in  his  severe  criti- 
cism of  American  newspapers  that 
the  victory  of  the  French  where  they 
took  7,500  prisoners  had  been  em- 
blazoned in  headlines  in  bold,  black 
type,  while  the  100,000  casualties 
suffered  during  the  same  week  by  the 
Allies  found  expression  in  small  type 
in  an  obscure  place  in  the  paper. 
He  very  rightly  said  that  such  a 
policy  was  not  honest  and  would  not 
command  the  respect  of  the  Ameri- 
can people;  that  what  the  public 
wanted  from  the  newspapers  was 
the  truth  whether  it  was  agreea- 
ble or  disagreeable  to  the  popular 
fancy,  and  that  the  papers  were  in 
duty  bound  to  publish  if  they  were 
honest,  the  facts,  disagreeable  as  they 
might  be. 

Another  thing  greatly  to  Lord 
Northcliffe's  credit  is  that  he  didn't 
indulge  in  the  sickening  rot  which  the 
military  propagandists  in  the  United 
States  do  in  denouncing  the  German 
people  as  a  whole.  If  you  credit  the 
statements  of  the  hired  orators  of  the 
military  propagandists  you  will  con- 
clude that  the  German  people  are 
hideous  monsters,  more  brutal  in 
their  cruelty  than  Comanche  Indians 
or  African  savages.  Lord  North- 
cliffe,  who  has  spent  much  time  in 
Germany,  says  they  are  a  peace- 
loving,  industrious,  frugal  people,  but 
dominated  by  a  military  autocracy 
that  seeks  to  rule  the  world,  and 
that  Great  Britain's  war  is  not 
against  the  German  people  but 
against  the  autocracy  and  its  poli- 
cies which  they  support,  that  unfor- 


tunately a  majority  of  the  people 
support  the  autocracy  and  because  of 
their  loyalty  must  inevitably  suffer. 
On  the  whole,  his  address  was  able, 
in  good  temper,  philosophical  and 
very  constructive. 

MONDAY,   OCTOBER  29,   1917.  ^ 

31  AY   BE   FORTUNATE   FOR  THE 
NATION. 

The  Journal  has  opened  its  columns 
unreservedly  to  the  campaign  for  the 
sale  of  the  issue  of  4%  United  States 
bonds.  It  did  this  not  because  it  ap- 
proved all  of  the  methods  that  were 
adopted  for  the  sale  of  these  bonds, 
although  on  the  whole  we  believe 
they  were  much  more  dignified  and 
becoming  than  the  first  campaign. 

The  literature  in  the  main  was 
very  much  superior  to  the  original 
literature  that  was  sent  out  for  the 
sale  of  the  3^/^  per  cent  bonds,  and 
by  the  time  the  next  issue  comes, 
the  probabilities  are  that  our  Govern- 
ment will  have  gotten  down  to  a 
decent  and  orderly  procedure  in  the 
issue  of  its  securities. 

We  regret  that  many  poor  people 
who  cannot  afford  to  buy  the  bonds 
were  by  a  system  of  semi-coercion 
induced  to  purchase  them.  Our 
theory  is  that  the  men  who  have 
money  should  furnish  the  Govern- 
ment with  the  money  to  carry  on  the 
war  and  not  ask  those  who  have  a 
hard  time  to  live  during  these  war 
times  to  skimp  themselves  of  really 
the  necessities  and  comforts  of  life  in 
order  to  furnish  the  Government 
funds.  The  poor  people  in  the  United 
States  independent  of  Ibond  purchases 
are  making  the  greatest  sacrifice. 
They  are  bearing  the  greatest  bur- 
den of  taxation  and  the  rich  men 
should  furnish  the  Government 
abundantly  of  their  funds. 

But  on  the  whole  we  are  inclined 
to  believe  that  it  will  be  good  for 
the  Government  for  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  people  to  make  the  sacri- 
fice which  they  are  making  in  pur- 
chasing these  bonds.  It  will  give 
them  a  more  direct  interest  in  the 
expenditure  of  the  fund  which  they 
are  making  such  sacrifice  to  provide. 
If  they  will  only  demand  that  the 
money  which  they  provide  in  this 
way  shall  be  honestly  and  economi- 
cally expended,  that  the  waste  which 


33 


IS  admitted  to  exist  everywhere  shall 
cease,  that  the  unnecessary  expendi- 
ture of  vast  amounts  be  stopped,  that 
intelligence  and  honesty  be  supreme 
in  the  administration  of  our  govern- 
ment finances,  great  things  will  have 
been  accomplished  by  the  widespread 
purchase  of  bonds  that  has  been  made 
by  the  American  people.  The  wel- 
fare of  this  nation  demands  the  peo- 
ple fully  to  realize  that  when  a  can- 
tonment such  as  that  at  Fort  Riley 
costs  two  or  three  times  what  it 
should  have  cost,  that  when  the  Gov- 
ernment pays  over  $50.00  apiece  for 
rifles  which  it  formerly  obtained  for 
{14.00,  it  is  wasting  their  money 
which  they  obtained  by  hard  labor 
and  sacrifice.  Then,  they  will  hold 
more  strictly  to  account  their  public 
servants,  their  members  of  Congress 
and  United  States  Senators  who  ap- 
propriate the  money  and  authorize 
the  expenditure.  The  widespread 
holding  of  these  bonds  may  ultimate- 
ly lead  to  a  much  needed  reorganiza- 
tion of  our  national  finances. 

TUESDAY,  OCTOBER  30.  1917. 

ARE   BEGINNING   TO   WAKE   UP. 

The  keynote  of  Lord  NorthCliffe's 
speech  at  Kansas  City,  and  indeed  of 
his  speech  everywhere  on  his  western 
tour,  has  been  the  need  of  ships.  He 
made  the  startling  statement  at  Kan- 
sas 'City  that  it  would  require  ten 
tons  of  shipping  to  supply  every 
soldier  that  the  United  States  had 
in  France.  Then  he  called  attention 
to  the  deplorable  lack  of  necessary 
I  shipping  for  us  to  sustain  any  con- 
'■  siderable  sized  army  in  Europe.  He 
illustrated  the  tremendous  burden 
which  rested  upon  the  American  peo- 
ple by  declaring  that  if  the  United 
States  maintained  an  army  of  many 
hundred  thousand  soldiers  in  France, 
it  would  be  necessary  to  ship  at  once 
for  the  use  of  that  army  500  locomo- 
tives and  40,000  railway  cars  of  dif- 
ferent types  and  kinds,  in  addition 
to  other  railway   equipment. 

Our    government    does    not    permit 

the    American    people    to    know    how 

I     many   soldiers   they  have   in   Europe. 

I     One  rumor  states  there  are  one  hun- 

l     dred    thousand,    and    another    rumor 

that  there  are  three  or  four  hundred 

thousand.     If  there   are   one  hundred 

thousand  American  troops  in  Europe 


and  there  are  at  least  that  number 
then  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  have  a 
million  tons  of  shipping  devoted  ex- 
clusively to  the  service  of  this  army 
in  order  to  furnish  it  with  supplies, 
munitions,  etc.  And  we  haven't  now 
one-half  of  that  amount,  probably 
not  one-fourth  of  it  available  for 
that  purpose. 

To  send  other  soldiers  to  Europe 
before  we  have  the  ships  to  furnish 
them  with  supplies  will  be  an  ad- 
ministrative blunder  more  dangerous 
than  the  Dardanelles  campaign  for 
Great  Britain.  We  will  have  an  army 
in  France  without  supplies,  simply  a 
burden  upon  the  Allies- 
It  is  probably  the  full  knowledge 
of  our  weakness  in  shipping  that  has 
led  the  Allies  to  suggest  to  our  ad- 
ministration that  they  do  not  need 
men  so  much  as  supplies.  That, 
probably,  is  an  indirect  way  of  sug- 
gesting to  us  the  tremendous  blunder 
that  we  may  make  in  rushing  men 
to  France  in  greater  numbers  than 
we  are  able  to  maintain. 

It  has  been  announced  that  it  is 
the  policy  of  the  Administration  to 
have  a  million  men  in  France  by  the 
first  of  next  July.  It  is  not  possible 
to  have  a  sufficient  amount  of  ship- 
ping available  by  the  first  of  July 
to  maintain  more  than  25  per  cent 
of  that  number  in  active  service.  In- 
deed, bending  every  energy  in  the 
construction  of  ships,  we  probably 
will  not  be  able  inside  of  two  years 
to  provide  sufficient  tonnage  to  fully 
supply  an  army  of  a  million  men. 

It  must  be  remembered,  as  Lord 
Northcliffe  so  clearly  pointed  out, 
that  the  ocean  is  infested  with  Ger- 
man submarines,  who  are  seeking  to 
destroy  the  military  power  of  the 
Allies.  They  are  sinking  the  ships 
bearing  cargo  that  will  be  most  use- 
ful to  the  army  and  they  have  dealt 
some  terrible  blows  to  the  Allies  dur- 
ing the  last  six  months  in  this  re- 
spect. 

It  is  the  part  of  wisdom  for  Ger- 
many to  sink  a  transport  loaded  with 
necessary  supplies  for  the  army 
rather  than  to  sink  a  transport  loaded 
with  soldiers,  for  the  soldiers  in 
France  without  supplies  are  a  burden 
upon  the  Allies  and  not  an  asset. 
This  Germany  knows. 

While  Northcliffe  is  an  Englishman 
here   in    the   interest    of    the   English 


34 


government,  devoted  ardently  to  the 
English  cause,  yet  his  frank  and  open 
.-itatement  of  the  weakness  of  the 
American  situation  should  be  of  in- 
estimable value  to  the  American 
people. 

We  deeply  regret  that  it  required 
an  Englishman,  speaking  in  the  cen- 
ter of  the  American  continent,  to  first 
notify  the  people  in  the  heart  of  this 
nation  of  the  great  emergency  and 
demand  that  is  upon  our  government 
and  the  crises  that  confront  it.  In- 
stead of  pointing  out  the  w^eaknesses 
arising  from  our  administration's  in- 
efficiency, the  great  American  news- 
papers have  indulged  in  vituperation 
and  abuse  of  the  men  who  have 
sought  to  do  so  and  praised  those  in 
public  positions  whom  they  knew  to 
be  inefficient  and  ineffective,  because 
of  a  false  notion  that  their  obliga- 
tion and  duty  was  to  sustain  the 
administration  right  or  wrong  be- 
cause we  are  in  war.  \ 

It  is  the  duty  of  the  government 
of  the  United  States,  regardless  of 
whose  hands  it  is  in,  to  serve  the 
American  people.  To  involve  theni 
in  enormous  expenditures,  to  impose 
upon  them  terrible  sacrifice  and  to 
conceal  from  them  the  truth  as  to 
administrative  policies  and  results  of 
administrative  acts,  is  criminal  and 
treasonable  and  the  American  public 
is  beginning  to  wake  up  to  this  fact. 

THURSDAY,  NOVEMBER  T,~1917." 

HE  BEARS  THE  BURDEN. 

The  State  of  Kansas  is  being  in- 
vaded this  week  systematically  by  the 
"Willing  Workers  of  Hoover"  in  his 
campaign  for  economy.  Mr.  Hoover 
has  an  appropriation  at  his  disposal 
of  some  one  hundred  and  eighty  mil- 
lions of  dollars.  He  has  employed 
at  lucrative  salaries  hundreds  of 
men  and  women  to  promote  his  plans 
and  has  also  enlisted  thousands  of 
workers  without  pay.  We  are  in 
sympathy  with  any  movement  that 
will  induce  the  American  people  to 
economize  in  their  life,  and  habits 
aijd  eliminate  waste.  In  this  respect 
we  believe  Mr.  Hoover  has  the  hearty 
support  of  the  American  people. 

Mr.  Hoover  expected,  so  we  have 
been  advised  on  good  authority,  to 
fix  the  price  of  live  stock,  but  the 
experience    in    price    fixing    of   wheat 


demonstrates  that  to  fix  the  price  ol 
the  basing  product  gives  no  relief 
to  the  consumer  because  flour  and 
bread  are  selling  now  for  approxi- 
mately the  same  as  they  did  under 
$2.75  and  $3.00  wheat,  so  that  the 
only  party  that  has  been  effected  by 
the  reduction  in  the  price  of  wheat  is 
the  producer.  The  profits  of  those 
who  handle  wheat  and  its  products 
have  been  stabilized  so  they  know 
exactly  what  they  .  can  expect.  The 
only  man  who  takes  any  chance  in 
the  production  of  bread — the  "stall 
of  life"  today — is  the  farmer  who 
produces  the  wheat  from  which  it  is 
made.  He  may  lose  his  seed  and 
labor  and  all  that  he  has  invested; 
nobody  makes  him  good,  and  his  loss 
is  not  taken  into  consideration  in 
figuring  the  cost  of  producing  his 
crop  the  following  year,  but  every 
other  individual  who  touches  grain 
and  its  products  from  the  time  it 
leaves  the  farm  has  a  guaranteed 
profit. 

The  National  Live  Stock  Associa- 
tion was  powerful  enough  to  pre- 
vent Mr.  Hoover  from  fixing  an  arbi- 
trary price  for  cattle,  but  he  has 
announced  this  week  that  he  in- 
tends to  fix  the  price  which  the 
packer  shall  charge  for  meat,  which 
means  that  he  intends  to  fix  the 
price  which  the  live  stock  producer 
will  obtain  -for  his  stock,  because 
the  packer  fixes  the  price  of  live 
stock  and  when  Mr.  Hoover  reduc^es 
the  price  of  meat  the  packer  will 
not  sacrifice  his  profits  but  will  take 
it  out  of  the  farmer.  They  in  the 
end,  will  bear  the  burden. 

It  is  incomprehensible  to  us  why 
this  whole  price  fixing  propaganda 
should  be  directed  ultimately  to  the 
American  farmer.  He  is  the  bul- 
wark of  our  civilization;  he  is  pro- 
ducing the  food  of  mankind;  he 
has  been  from  the  beginning  of  this 
nation  its  "bone  and  sinew";  he 
represents  the  great  masses  of  the 
common  run  of  men.  Upon  the 
American  farm  you  find  no  mil- 
lionaires and  few  paupers,  but  a  hard 
working,  honest,  frugal  citizen,  in- 
terested in  the  welfare  of  his  country 
and  of  mankind;  but  the  tendency  for 
the  last  few  years,  culminating  in 
the  present  food  propaganda,  has 
been  to  increase  his  burden  by  legis- 
lative   enactment    and    to    discouragp 


35 


his  industry.  For  40  years  he  stood 
heroically  by  the  protective  tariff 
policy  because  he  wanted  to  develop 
a  home  market  for  the  products  of 
the  soil  and  this  was  done,  but  now 
he  is  to  be  deprived  of  the  advant- 
ages of  that  home  market,  and,  dur- 
ing the  stress  of  war  times  when 
prices  of  everything  which  he  uses 
are  "mounting  to  the  sky,"  the  Gov- 
ernment refuses  to  permit  the 
products  of  his  toil  to  keep  pace  in 
the  upward  movement,  and  he  is 
abundantly  justified  in  the  deep  re- 
sentment which  is  growing  up  in  his 
heart  against  the  present  administra- 
rive  policy   of   our  government. 

MONDAY,   NOVEMBER"~127^1917r 


WHEN     WILL     THE     CONSUMER 
BENEFIT? 

Another  list  of  maximum  steel 
prices  has  been  fixed  by  the  adminis- 
trative forces.  This  time  they  have 
fixed  the  price  on  scrap  iron  and 
sheet  steel,  tin  plate,  etc.,  which 
will  be  very  gratifying  to  the  manu- 
facturer of  domestic  steel  products. 

We  are  patiently  waiting  for  the 
time  to  come  when  the  consuming 
public  will  get  an  advantage  by  re- 
duced prices  on  steel  products  which 
it  uses.  Fixing  the  price  of  scrap 
iron  is  not  of  much  interest  to  the 
farmer  who  has  to  purchase  agricul- 
tural machinery,  except  that  it  re- 
duces the  price  of  the  junk  which 
accumulates  on  the  farm  during  the 
course  of  years. 

Is  it  to  have  any  effect  upon  the 
prices  of  the  new  machinery  which 
he  is  compelled  to  buy?  What  com- 
modities used  by  the  American  people 
in  their  household  and  business  af- 
fairs are  to  be  reduced  in  price  be- 
cause of  the  fixed  price  of  sheet  steel 
which  the  government  has  agreed 
upon   with  the  steel  trust? 

The  consumers  of  the  steel  trust 
who  purchase  from  it  their  raw  ma- 
terial will  be  benefitted  by  a  stabil- 
ity of  price.  How  much  of  an  ad- 
vantage are  they  going  to  give  the 
consuming  public,  and  how  are  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  people  upon 
whom  the  burden  rests  the  heaviest 
to  be  benefitted?  These  are  ques- 
tions upon  which  we  anxiously  wait 
for    information. 


WEDNESDAY,  NOVEMBERJjU  1917 

SPEAKING  TOO  LATE. 

We  clip  the  following  from  last 
Saturday's  Kansas  City  Star,  and 
commend  the   spirit  of  the  editorial: 

"It  is  a  great  thing  for  a  country 
to  have  a  man  like  Lord  Northcliffe 
who  has  the  intelligence  to  •discern 
things  that  are  wrong  and  the  cour- 
age to  speak  out  and  tell  about 
them.  Doubtless,  as  the  Westminster 
Gazette  says,  other  distinguished 
Englishmen  have  felt  as  Northcliffe 
did,  but  none  of  them  has  had  the 
nerve    to    express    his    feelings. 

"A  country  engaged  in  a  life  and 
death  struggle  can't  afford  to  let 
politeness  stand  in  the  way  of  ef- 
ficiency. Failure  to  criticise  where 
criticism  is  due,  as  has  often  been 
said,  may  be  disastrous.  For  it  puts 
a  country's  vital  interests  at  the 
mercy  of  incompetent  men  who  may 
chance  through  favoritism  to  be  in 
office." 

The  Journal  has  been  contending 
for  months  that  what  America 
needed  was  a  metropolitan  press  that 
would  speak  the  truth  in  regard  to 
the  incompetency,  extravagance,  and 
in  many  instances  corruption,  of  the 
existing  administration. 

Not  only  has  the  United  States  be- 
come involved  in  the  European  war 
because  of  the  incompetent  manage- 
ment of  its  diplomatic  affairs;  but 
since  we  entered  the  war  our  re- 
sources have  been  wasted  in  reckless 
extravagance,  our  men  have  been  col- 
lected in  army  camps  before  there 
was  provision  made  to  take  care  of 
them.  They  have  been  kept  in  light, 
wooden  buildings  without  fire,  with 
inadequate  clothing,  and  as  a  result 
Spinal  meningitis  and  pneumonia 
have  taken  many  of  them  and  per- 
manently injured  the  health  of  others. 

This  could  have  been  avoided  by 
ordinary  foresight  and  the  exercise 
of  ordinary  intelligence  in  the  admin- 
istrative affairs  of  the  goverpment. 
What  occasion  was  there  to  take 
thousands  of  young  men  from  their 
comfortable  homes,  surrounded  in 
many  cases  by  the  luxuries  of  mod- 
ern life  and  to  put  them  without  heat 
and  with  inadequate  clothing,  in  these 
cantonments. 

It   is    true    that    these    young    men 


3() 


must  endure  hardships,  for  military 
service  is  full  of  hardships;  but  ordi- 
nary intellig-ence  dictates  that  they 
should  be  gradually  accustomed  to  the 
radical  change  in  life  which  the  army 
service  requires.  But  that  ordinary 
intelligence  has  not  been  exercised 
by  the  Secretary  of  War. 

If  the  Kansas  City  Star  and  other 
metropolitan  papers  had  spoken  out 
sooner — six  months  ago — and  de- 
manded efficiency,  integrity  and  com- 
mon sense  on  the  part  of  the  admin- 
istrative officials  much  of  the  loss  of 
life  and  health  and  waste  of  public 
funds  would  have  been  avoided.  But 
having  failed  then,  we  must  be  grate- 
ful that  now  they  are  awaking  to 
the  seriousness  of  the  situation — too 
late  to  save  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  of  funds  that  have  been 
wasted  and  the  lives  of  many  valua- 
ble young  men  that  have  been  lost— 
but  fortunately  soon  enough  to  lessen 
the  disaster  of  the  future. 

We  also  desire  to  commend  Con- 
gressman P.  P.  Campbell,  who  is  now 
bitterly  complaining  of  the  incompe- 
tency of  the  existing  administration. 
It  would  have  been  better,  in  our 
opinion,  if  Mr.  Campbell  had  spoken 
months  ago.  If  one-tenth  of  the 
members  of  Congress  had  spoken  as 
frankly  six  months  ago  as  Mr.  Camp- 
bell speaks  now,  much  of  the  disas- 
ter could  have  been  avoided;  but  un- 
fortunately at  that  time  they  re- 
mained quiet  apparently  to  escape  the 
hostile  criticism  of  the  administration 
and  its  votaries  who  then  were  riding 
on  the  very  apex  of  the  war  propa- 
ganda. Speaking  plainly  then  was 
denounced  as  treason  but  time  is 
demonstrating  that  silence  was  more 
treasonable  than  accusation. 

THURSDAY,  NOVEMBER  22,   IOtT. 

A  FAIR  TAX. 

We  note  that  the  American  News- 
paper Association  has  a  lobby  at 
Washington  now  demanding  the  re- 
peal of  that  part  of  the  revenue  law 
which  increases  the  postage  rate  on 
newspapers  and  magazines. 

By  expenditure  of  money  and  the 
maintenance  of  a  bureau  of  able 
lobbyists  at  Washington  they  may 
induce  Congress  to  repeal  this  in- 
crease in  postage  on  newspapers. 
The  Journal  will  have  its  postage  bill 


more  than  doubled  by  this  measure. 
We  are  not  anxious  to  pay  an  addi- 
tional tax  any  more  than  is  anybody 
else;  but  we  are  paying  our  share  of 
the  war  tax  in  increased  letter'  post- 
age, in  a  tax  on  amusements,  a  per- 
centage tax  upon  freight  bills  and 
railroad  fares,  etc. 

None  of  these  taxes  are  as  just  as 
the  increased  postage  on  the  news- 
papers we  are  publishing.  It  is  the 
fairest  and  most  deserving  of  all 
of  the  postage  increases  that  have 
been  made,  and  nothing  is  more  con- 
temptible or  despicable  than  for  the 
metropolitan  papers  and  magazines 
to  keep  a  lobby  in  Washington  at 
work  to  get  out  of  paying  a  just  and 
fair  postage  rate  to  the  United 
States   government. 

Some  members  of  this  Association 
went  so  far  last  spring  as  to  allege 
that  because  the  newspapers  were 
supporting  the  government  in  time  of 
war  that  they  should  be  exempted 
from  the  just  postal  rate  proposed. 

It  is  a  source  of  pride  to  us  that 
the  executive  committee  of  the  Kan- 
sas State  Editorial  Association  is 
backing  the  Post  Office  Department 
in  its  effort  to  put  newspaper  post- 
age upon  an  equitable  and  just  basis, 
so  that  the  newspaper  business  will 
pay  its  fair  share,  at  least  of  the 
expense  which  the  government  incurs 
in  handling  its  business.  Our  asso- 
ciation is  standing  by  the  zone  sys- 
tem which  is  insisted  upon  by  the 
Post   Office  Department. 

SATURDAY,   NOVEMBER  24,  1917. 

LET  THEM  GO  TO  WORK. 

The  Chicago  Tribune  has  made  a 
vicious  attack  upon  the  farmer  of 
the  United  States,  accusing  him  of 
a  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  nation's 
welfare  and  of  being  selfish,  isolated, 
unpatriotic  and  an  all  around  unde- 
sirable citizen. 

This  criticism  is  indirectly  ap- 
proved by  some  of  the  metropolitan 
papers  in  Kansas.  These  people 
seem  to  resent  the  fact  that  the 
American  farmer  iS'  not  a  peasant 
such  as  exists  in  Russia,  who,  with- 
out complaint  or  resentment,  accepts 
any  imposition  placed  upon  him  by 
the   governing  class. 

It  is  fashionable  in  certain  quar- 
ters  to  refer  to   a   farmer  who   hap- 


37 


pens  to  own  an  automobile  as  a 
"plutocrat"  and  to  speak  with  de- 
rision and  sarcasm  of  the  down- 
trodden agricultural  class,  because  a 
number  of  them  have  been  able  to 
by  automobiles  ranging  in  value  from 
$350  to  $1500— most  of  them,  how- 
ever, being  Fords.  These  people 
seem  to  think  that  the  farmer  does 
not  have  ^  right  to  an  automobile 
such  as  the  merchant  or  the  profes- 
sional men  enjoy,  when  the  fact  is 
that  they  are  about  the  only  ones 
who  can  utilize,  in  a  practical  way, 
the  automobile.  The  farmer  does  not 
get  it  for  pleasure  but  as  a  useful 
machine.  It  takes  him  to  town  and 
back  rapidly  and  enables  him  to 
spend  more  time  upon  his  farm, 
which  he  has  to  do  now,  because  of 
the  scarcity  of  labor. 

The  American  farmer  provides  the 
basic  food  and  clothing  products  of 
mankind.  If  these  self-constituted 
critics  think  that  farming  is  so  profit- 
able, why  do  not  they  go  into  it 
themselves?  There  are  millions  of 
acres  of  land  lying  idle  waiting  for 
the  touch  of  their  hands;  and  instead 
of  abusing  the  man  who  toils  from 
daylight  to  dark  to  produce  the 
food  of  the  world  these  men  ought 
to  acquire  some  of  this  idle  land 
and  go  to  work  and  produce  some- 
thing themselves.  Let  them  do  some 
real  labor  instead  of  living  by  their 
wits  and  upon  the  energies  of  the 
producing  classes  of  the  world.  Then 
they  can  discuss  with  more  intelli- 
gence and  value  the  problems  that 
relate  to  the  soil. 


MONDAY,   NOVEMBER   26,    1917. 

SUPERFICIAL  PRICE  FIXING. 

The  fixing  of  prices  has  been  en- 
tered upon  as  a  policy  for  a  few  agri- 
cultural products.  The  motive  behind 
the  fixing  of  these  prices  was  to 
cheapen  the  cost  of  food  in  the  large 
cities  and  industrial  centers  of  the 
nation;  and  the  reduction  in  the  cost 
of  food  has  been  the  motive  that  has 
determined  the  action  of  these  price 
fixing  boards,  although  it  is  alleged 
that  they  are  seeking  to  increase  pro- 
duction of  the  food  by  guaranteeing 
certain  prices.  In  this,  however,  they 
have  utterly  failed,  because  the  men 
9rhn     control     these     boards     do     not 


understand    the    industrial    conditions 
of  the  United  States. 

They  are  taking  a  very  narrow 
view  of  the  situation.  They  want  to 
reduce  the  price  of  the  food  which 
the  people  of  New  York  City,  for 
example,  have  to  have,  and  so  they 
seek  to  reduce  the  price  which  the 
farmer  is  permitted  to  obtain  for  his 
crop,  as  they  have  in  the  case  of 
wheat  and  hogs. 

They  lose  sight  of  that  great  fund- 
amental economic  principle  that  sup- 
ply is  the  greatest  regulator  of  price. 
It  is  a  lamentable  fact  that  for  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  en- 
terprising young  men  of  this  country 
have  left  the  farm  and  gone  to  the 
town.  They  did  this  because  it  was 
more  profitable  to  engage  in  other 
lines  of  occupation  than  farming,  and 
the  influx  from  the  farm  to  the  city 
has  been  greater  during  recent 
months  than  at  any  other  time  in  the 
country's  history. 

When  a  young  man  can  come  to 
town  and  get  employment  at  some 
lucrative  occupation  and  live  with 
greater  comfort  and  ease  than  he 
can  by  remaining  in  the  country  he 
will  come  to  town.  The  fact  is  that 
the  opportunities  for  enterprising  and 
aggressive  young  men  are  more  num- 
erous in  the  towns  and  cities  of  the 
nation  than  they  are  in  the  rural 
districts,  which  accounts  for  the 
movement  from  country  to  city. 

The  greatest  handicap  to  farming 
operations  in  the  United  States  is 
the  lack  of  labor.  No  farmer  can 
compete  with  the  corporations  in  the 
employment  of  men.  They  can  pay 
more  than  he  can.  They  do  pay 
more  and  that  is  why  competent " 
young  men  go  to  them  to  obtain  em- 
ployment. Whenever  it  is  more 
profitable  to  remain  on  the  farm  and 
pursue  the  vocation  of  agriculture 
then  there  will  be  a  larger  number  of 
farmers  and  greater  production. 

The  high  cost  of  food,  however,  is 
not  because  of  the  high  prices  the 
farmer  receives  for  his  product. 
Hogs  at  15  to  17  cents  a  pound  on 
foot  do  not  justfy  a  charge  of  40  or 
50  cents  a  pound  for  hams  and  bacon. 
The  hog  on  foot  at  17  cents  a  pound 
will  not  cost  to  exceed  22  to  24 
cents  a  pound  dressed,  depending 
upon  the  size  and  condition.  Why 
this  price  should  be  doubled  when  the 


38 


cured  meats  reach  the  market  has 
not  been  satisfactorily  explained,  ex- 
cept that  it  adds  to  the  profits  of 
the  packers.  The  pnly  way  to  in- 
crease production  is  to  fix  a  price 
that  is  profitable  to  the  producer, 
and  the  only  way  ta  keep  the  con- 
sumer from  being  imposed  upon  by 
high  prices  is  for  the  government  to 
take  charge  of  the  packing  industry. 
If  we  are  going  into  the  price-fixing 
business  that  is  the  first  and  essential 
step,  and  GifFord  Pinchot  was  right 
and  time  will  demonstrate  he  was 
when  he  insisted  that  that  be  done 
and  refused  to  longer  remain  as  one 
of  Mr.  Hoover's  assistants,  because 
he  felt  that  the  efforts  being  made 
were  superficial  and  ineffective  and 
more  in  the  interests  of  the  dealer 
than  of  the  producer  of  farm 
products. 

SATURDAY.  DECEMBER  1,  19177 

SERVING  THE  CORPORATIONS 
MORE  THAN  THE  PUBLIC. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  develop- 
ments of  the  present  war  government 
in  the  United  States,  we  call  atten- 
tion to  the  recent  order  of  the  food 
board  requiring  millers  to  load  all 
carloads  of  flour  and  grain  products 
to  at  least  60,000  pounds  before 
shipment. 

There  has  been  a  movement  for 
some  time  on  the  part  of  the  rail- 
ways, the  Santa  Fe  being  the  most 
insistent,  in  behalf  of  increasing  the 
minimum  carload  weight  fixed  for 
grain  products  in  the  western  states. 
The  minimum  weight  for  a  carload 
of  flour  or  grain  products  in  Kansas 
is    24,000    pounds. 

Two  hearings  have  been  held  by  the 
Kansas  Commission  in  the  last  four 
or  five  years,  and  in  both  instances 
the  Commission  /efused  to  increase 
the  minimum  carload  weight,  because 
of  the  commercial  conditions  that 
exist.  As  it  is  now,  in  Kansas  a 
dealer  can  order  a  carload  of  24,000 
pounds  from  a  mill  and  get  the  car- 
load rate.  The  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  has  fixed  40,000  pounds 
as  the  minimum  weight  for  inter- 
state or  long  shipments.  A  heavier 
minimum  weight  should  be  required 
for  such  shipments  than  the  short 
shipments. 

President    Ripley   of    the    Santa    Fe 


made  a  violent  attack  upon  the  Kan- 
sas Commission,  because  it  refused 
to  increase  its  minimum  weight  for 
grain  products,  and  stated  that  it 
was  directly  against  the  interests  of 
the  railroads  and  the  big  shippers. 

It  seems  that  the  railroads  do  not 
care  to  be  bothered  with  the  small 
dealers.  What  they  want  to  serve 
most  is  the  large  shippers  and  the 
great  commei'cial  centers.  The  in- 
terstate Commerce  Commission  re- 
fused to  increase  the  minimum 
weight  above  40,000  pounds,  after 
an  exhaustive  hearing  and  then  re- 
opened the  case  with  a  view  to  re- 
ducing it  somewhat  if  it  appeared 
that  40,000  pounds  was  too  much  to 
best  serve  the  commercial  interests 
of  the  country. 

But  when  Mr.  Hoover  organized 
his  food  conservation  bureau,  he  se- 
lected Mr.  Chambers,  vice  president 
in  charge  of  traffic  for  the  Santa  Fe. 
as  one  of  his  assistants  and  placed 
him  in  charge  of  transportation.  So 
Mr.  Chambers,  now  being  clothed 
with  authority  by  the  United  States 
government  orders  the  mills  which 
have  been  licensed  to  deal  in  grain 
and  grain  products  by  the  food  ad- 
ministration to  ship  not  less  than 
60,000  pounds  in  carload  lots,  there- 
by taking  advantage  of  this  power 
which  his  voluntary  service  to  the 
government  gives  him  to  over-ride 
every  state  commission  in  the  United 
States  and  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  as  well,  in  the  interests 
of  the  railroads  and  big  shippers. 

This  large  minimum  carload  will 
be  destructive  to  the  commercial  in- 
terests of  many  communities.  These 
corporation  magnates  who  are  prais- 
ing themselves  for  patriotism,  be- 
cause they  are  working  for  the  gov- 
ernment for  nothing  are  serving  their 
real  employers  the  corporations  far 
more   than   the   public. 


MONDAY,  DECEMBER  3,  1917. 

NEED  A  GRANT. 

In  an  editorial  some  two  weeks 
since  the  Journal  declared  what  the 
allies  needed  was  more  generals  like 
Grant  and  Sherman  and  fewer  Mc- 
Clellans. 

We  were  assailed  by  the  apologists 
and  votaries  'of  the  present  adminis- 
tration   as    usual    for    not    extrava- 


39 


gantly  ijraisir^g  what  is  being  done, 
right  or  wrong,  effective  or  ineffec- 
tive, and  ridiculed  by  some  for  pre- 
suming to  know  anything  about  the 
military  situation  in  Europe,  not  hav- 
ing been  there  to  make  a  personal 
inspection. 

We  apologize  for  our  ignorance; 
but  in  spite  of  such  lack  of  in- 
formation we  have  an  intense  and 
earnest  desire  for  the  allies  to  do 
something  really  effective.  We  can- 
not complain  of  the  efforts  that  are 
being  made  by  the  English,  measur- 
ing them  by  the  losses  they  incur 
week  after  week.  They  seem  to 
be  losing  more  men  weekly  than 
either  side  lost  in  the  battle  of  Get- 
tysburg, but  for  these  enormous  sac- 
rifices they  are  obtaining  little  ad- 
vantage. They  advance  until  they 
reach  a  critical  point  and  then  stop 
while  "the  Germans  intrench  again. 

American  papers  have  been  full  of 
praise  for  the  recent  advance  near 
Cambrai,  but  like  the  other  English 
movements  it  has  been  executed  with 
courage  but  with  slight  success.  The 
latest  report  is  that  they  captured 
9,000  prisoners  and  got  within  a  few 
miles  of  Cambrai  and  are  now  "con- 
solidating their  positions  and  hold- 
ing their  lines." 

They  made  the  same  kind  of  an 
advance  near  Lens  four  months  ago 
and  have  been  only  holding  their 
positions.  Of  course,  that  is  very 
much  better  than  losing  ground;  but 
when  an  advance  is  made  there 
ought  to  be  massed  behind  that  at- 
tack a  sufficient  force  to  achieve 
actual  effective  results.  If  Cambrai 
had  been  taken  and  the  military 
stores  captured  before  they  were 
moved  back;  if  we  had  taken  a  fifth 
or  even  a  tenth  as  many  prisoners  as 
the  Germans  took  in  the  Italian  drive 
we  would  have  counted  it  a  substan- 
tial victory;  but  apparently  we  have 
made  the  enormous  sacrifices  neces- 
sary to  achieve  this  advance  and  still 
get  no  substantial  advantage. 

The  American  newspapers  have 
made  it  appear  that  we  had  dealt  a 
irushing  blow  to  the  Germans  on 
■the    western    front,    but,    in    fact,    it 

as  only  a  somewhat  ineffective  dent 
n  their  line. 

':   We  do  not  think  it  is  advantageous 
0  exaggerate  our  successes  or  mini- 

ize  the  achievements  of  our  enemies. 


As  we  have  so  often  said^  what  the 
American  people  want  is  the  truth 
and  they  will  prepare  to  meet  what- 
ever responsibilities  rest  upon  them. 

The  Journal,  as  is  known  to  all  of 
its  readers,  protested  against  our 
entrance  into  this  war.  We  believe 
now  that  if  there  had  been  anything 
like  wise  statesmanship  in  the  man- 
agement of  our  country's  diplomatic 
affairs  during  the  last  four  years 
we  would  not  have  been  engaged  in 
this  war.  But  this  awful  mistake  is 
made. 

We  are  now  into  the  war;  we 
have  appropriated  enormous  sums  of 
money  to  carry  it  on;  our  sons  have 
enlisted  and  we  have  to  fight  it  out. 
However,  we  should  go  about  this  in 
the  most  intelligent  and  effective 
way.  The  thing  of  prime  importance 
is  that  the  American  people  shall 
understand  the  tremendous  task  they 
have  on  hand.  To  fool  them  by  ex- 
aggerated reports  of  ineffective  suc- 
cesses or  to  minimize  the  strength 
and  forces  of  the  enemy  we  have  to 
meet  is  dishonest  and  the  crying 
need  now  is  a  military  genius  to 
lead  the  allied  armies. 


SATURDAY,   JANUARY   5,   1918. 

WE  TRUST  THE  PLAN  WILL  SUC- 
CEED. 

The  tremendous  consequences  of 
the  government  taking  over  the  rail- 
roads, cannot  now'  properly  be  esti- 
mated. That  there  is  grave  conges- 
tion in  the  East  in  the  transportation 
of  the  nation  is  beyond  question.  This 
congestion,  however,  has  been  brought 
about  largely  by  the  government's 
incoherent  and  unsystematic  action  in 
regard  to  the  movement  of  the  nor- 
mal  traffic    of   the   country. 

There  is  suffering  now  in  New 
England,  for  fuel,  that  is  very  grave. 
At  least  two-thirds  of  the  fuel  of 
that  section  of  the  United  States  is 
carried  there  during  the  summer  and 
fall  months  by  water,  most  of  it  com- 
ing in  barges  from  Virginia,  Mary- 
land and  Pennsylvania  ports. 

Last  summer  the  shipping  board 
and  the  navy  commandeered  .  prac- 
tically all  of  the  tugs  and  barges  for 
war  purposes.  This  was  done  un- 
mindful of  the  fact  that  it  was  very 
seriously  interfering  with  the  norma] 
domestic    and    industrial    business    of 


40 


the  greatest  manufacturing  centers 
of  the  United  States,  and  while  these 
facilities  upon  which  the  people  de- 
pended for  the  maintenance  of  their 
industrial  life  were  taken  no  effort 
was  made  to  see  that  other  adequate 
facilities    were    supplied. 

When  winter  came  and  the  fuel  and 
food  shortages  were  apparent  then- 
a  frantic  effort  was  made  to  fill  the 
demands  by  rail  transportation,  and 
an  unusual  burden  was  placed  upon 
the  carriers — a  heavier  burden  than 
they  could  bear,  and  one  they  had 
never  expected  to  be  called  upon  to 
bear. 

Dr.  Garfield,  the  fuel  administra- 
tor, being  wholly  unfamiliar  with 
traffic  affairs,  under  the  war  author- 
ity of  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  ordered  the  railroads  to  give 
priority  to  fuel  shipments  and  put  an 
embargo  on  many  other  commodities. 

In  order  that  the  railroads  might 
comply,  this  necessitated  the  break- 
ing up  of  through  trains  and  the 
making  up  of  coal  trains,  as  a  vast 
majority  of  the  through  trains  car- 
ried not  only  coal  but  other  necessary 
commodities.  This  greatly  delayed 
the  normal  operation  of  the  trans- 
portation facilities,  increased  in  many 
terminal  centers  the  switching  be- 
tween 30  and  40  per  cent,  which  re- 
sulted in  delay  and  congestion.  The 
result  was  that  instead  of  hasten- 
ing the  shipment  of  fuel,  as  Director 
Garfield  with  his  theoretical  ideas 
thought  it  would  do,  it  lessened  the 
amount  of  fuel  shipped  and  con- 
gested all  other  kinds  of  traffic  until 
the  people  in  that  section  were  des- 
perate and  suffering  was  imminent. 

In  the  mean  time,  where  food  was 
short,  the  food  administration  wa.; 
ordering  the  railroads  to  give  priority 
to  some  important  commodity,  and 
then  controversies  arose  between  the 
two  administrations  as  to  which  had 
supreme  authority.  Judge  Lovett. 
chairman  of  the  executive  board  of 
the  Union  Pacific,  was  selected  as  a 
priority  arbitrator  to  determine  these 
controversies. 

This  incoherent  and  incompetent 
management  in  many  instances  has 
unnecessarily  interfered  with  the  nor- 
mal commerce  of  the  people  and  been 
disastrous  to  the  country.  The  Pres- 
ident, hoping  to  relieve  the  situation, 
has  put  Tiis  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 


in  charge  of  all  of  the  railroads  of 
the  United  States — a  man  already 
greatly  over-burdened  with  work. 
It  is  a  frantic  effort  to  relieve  a  dis- 
astrous situation,  which  incompetent 
agencies  of  the  administration  have 
largely  brought  ajjout.  The  manner 
of  carrying  out  such  a  program  is 
supreme  importance  to  the  commer- 
cial and  industrial  life  of  this  nation. 
The  people  will  watch  each  move  with 
deep  concern. 

"MONDAY,  JANUARY  7,  1918. 


A  SCHEME  FRAUGHT  WITH 
GRAVE  DANGER. 

The  speech  of  the  President  relat- 
ing to  the  taking  over  of  the  rail- 
roads under  the  war  provisions  of  the 
law  enacted  at  the  last  session  of 
congress  and  the  bill  prepared  by  his 
direction  and  introduced  simultane- 
ously with  the  making  of  his  speech, 
in  some  respects,  constitute  the  most 
amazing  incident  in  American  his- 
tory. 

This  measure,  prepared  in  the  of- 
fice of  the  Attorney  General  of  the 
United  States,  turns  over  the  rail- 
roads to  the  President  and  provides 
for  appropriating  a  half  billion  dol- 
lars out  of  the  public  funds,  to  be 
used  as  the  president  sees  fit.  It 
gives  him  authority  to  do  almost 
anything  with  the  railroads.  He  can 
make  any  kind  of  extensions  or  im- 
provements, and  not  only  spend  any 
amount  of  public  money  in  so  doing 
but  can  use  the  money  received  from 
the  earnings  of  the  roads  at  will. 
He  can  fix  the  rates  for  transporta- 
tion as  he  desires. 

He  is  made  a  dictator,  absolute, 
of  American  commerce,  unrestrained. 
He  asks  for  power  as  vast  as  the 
czar  of  Russia  in  the  days  of  his 
greatest  supremacy  enjoyed.  This, 
taken  in  connection  with  other  war  ( 
legislation  that  has  already  been  en- 
acted, has  turned  the  government  of 
the  United  States  from  a  representa- 
tive republic  to  a  dictatorship. 

The  President  of  the  United  States 
today  is  just  as  much  of  a  dictator 
as  was  Mr.  Diaz  in  Mexico,  and  this 
proposed  law  goes  beyond  anything 
that  the  Mexican  military  autocrat 
ever  assumed.  ^ 

Diaz  was  able  to  perpetuate  him- 
self in  authority  in  Mexico  for  thirty 


41 


years  by  exercising  the  power  which 
he  possessed  as  a  dictator.  He  was 
nominally  re-elected  term  after  term, 
but  the  elections  represented  no  ex- 
pression of  public  opinion.  They 
were  simply  forced  by  the  supreme 
authority  of  the  president  himself. 

Whether  Mr.  Wilson  will  undertake 
to  set  aside  all  American  traditions 
and  perpetuate  himself,  or  his  son- 
in-law,  Mr.  McAdoo,  in  the  presi- 
dency remains  to  be  seen.  If  he 
undertakes  it,  whether  he  will  have 
the  power  to  do  so  depends  upon 
American  public  opinion.  Whether 
the  love  of  freedom  and  individual 
liberty  which  characterized  the 
American  patriots  who  established 
our  form  of  government  has  departed 
from  the  American  people  and  they 
are  willing  to  become  subservient 
to  a  supreme  authority,  as  did  the 
Romans,  time   only   can   determine. 

However,  some  of  the  President's 
recommendations  deserve  special  con- 
sideration, especially  that  one  relat- 
ing to  the  compensation  to  be  given 
the  railroads  for  the  use  of  their 
property. 

He  gniarantees  them  the  average 
earnings  of  the  last  three  years,  or 
approximately  a  net  revenue  of  a 
billion  dollars  a  year;  and  then  gives 
any  railroad  the  opportunity  to  claim 
a  greater  compensation  if  it  can 
make  a  case  before  the  Court  of 
Claims.  This  opens  the  doors  for 
unlimited  litigation  for  years  and 
years  to  come,  as  anyone  familiar 
with  the  litigation  before  the  Court 
of  Claims  knows. 

War  claims  from  the  Revolutionary 
war,  the  War  of  1812,  the  Mexican 
war,  and  millions  of  dollars  of  claims 
growing  out  of  the  Civil  war  are 
still  pending  before  that  court;  and 
never  a  session  of  congress  passes 
but  some  appropriations  are  made  to 
pay  these  century-old  claims  that  in 
fact  have  not  the  slightest  merit. 
But  they  are  worked  through  by  un- 
scrupulous lobbyists  who  have  picl^ed 
up  these  alleged  claims  for  a  song  in 
years  gone  by;  and  if  they  can  get 
an  appropriation  to  pay  them,  it 
means  so  much  personal  gain.  The 
President  in  this  bill,  which  he  de- 
mands be  passed,  creates  the  widest 
field  for  such  litigation  that  has  yet 
been  opened  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States. 


The  average  net  profits  of  the  rail- 
roads during  the  last  three  years 
have  been  far  greater  than  in  any 
other  similar  period  in  American  his- 
tory. They  will  amount  to  more 
than  three  hundred  millions  a  year 
in  excess  of  that  for  any  three  years 
preceding  the  breaking  out  of  the 
European  war.  It  guarantees  many 
of  the  railroads  from  10  to  25  per 
cent  net  returns  upon  the  value  of 
their  property;  and  this  is  done  in 
the  name  of  justice.  The  rank  and 
file  of  the  American  people  who  de- 
pend upon  their  daily  wage  for  a 
living  are  being  urged  to  buy  gov- 
ernment bonds  drawing  4%  as  a 
patriotic  sacrifice,  yet  in  the  face  of 
that  campaign  the  president  makes 
this  astounding  recommendation. 
Moreover  his  plan  validates  every 
dollar's  worth  of  watered  stock  that 
has  been  set  afloat  in  the  last  fifty 
years  of  disgraceful  American  rail- 
way promotion. 

It  taxes  the  American  public  dur- 
ing these  perplexing  war  times  the 
enormous  sum  of  at  least  one-half 
billion  dollars  a  year  to  make  good 
to  the  owners  of  these  railroads,  who 
are  largely  Wall  Street  speculators, 
the  most  excessive  profits  that  they 
have  ever  obtained,  and  secures  them 
against  any  industrial  or  financial  re- 
verses to  which  the  country  may  be 
subjected. 

While  other  business  struggles  with 
war  taxes  and  additional  burdens  im- 
posed to  provide  funds  for  the  con- 
duct of  this  war,  by  this  bill  the 
owners  of  the  railroad  property  are 
exempted  not  only  from  any  further 
increase  in  federal  taxes  but  from 
the  increased  taxes  provided  by  the 
last  congress.  They  are  set  aside  as 
an  excepted  class  and  given  privi- 
leges that  no  other  property  owners 
in  the  nation  are  permitted  to  enjoy. 

Many  crimes  have  been  committed 
in  the  name  of  patriotism  during  the 
last  year.  Millions  of  the  public 
money  have  been  taken  from  the 
treasury  by  the  most  nauseating  cor- 
ruption, as  is  being  demonstrated  by 
the  investigations  in  Washington;  but 
this  is  the  boldest  eflfort  to  take  from 
the  American  people  billions  of  dol- 
lars, for  which  no  adequate  return  is 
made,  that  has  ever  been  attempted 
in  the  history  of  the  nation. 

The  farmer   is   pursuing  his    voca- 


42 


tion  struggling  against  the  adverse 
conditions  of  climate.  The  weather 
may  prevent  him  from  harvesting 
that  which  he  has  sown.  If  he  har- 
vests it,  the  vicissitudes  of  commerce 
may  prevent  him  from  marketing  his 
product  at  a  profit. 

The  merchant  contracts  for  his 
goods,  but  industrial  or  commercial 
depression  may  prevent  him  from  dis- 
posing  of  them   at   profitable   prices. 

The  laborer  may  have  employment, 
but  business  stagnation  may  stop  en- 
terprises and  he  is  then  compelled  to 
wander  the  streets  and  hunt  for 
work.  These  are  conditions  which 
every  farmer,  merchant,  laborer  and 
business  man  has  confronted  in  the 
last  generation,  and  with  which  he 
will  be  confronted  again;  but  the 
President  by  this  law  which  he  de- 
mands protects  the  owners  of  rail- 
road property  from  any  of  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  fortune.  He  gives  them  a 
higher  rate  of  earning  than  they  have 
ever  received  in  times  of  peace  and 
guarantees  that  they  shall  never  re- 
ceive less  regardlss  of  whatever  com- 
mercial or  industrial  condition  may 
arise.  He  assumes  all  the  burdens  of 
operation  and  maintenance  of  the 
railroads  and  pledges  this  fabulous 
amount  as  profits. 

It  would  have  been  far  better  for 
the  President  to  have  demanded  that 
Congress  authorize  him  to  purchase 
the  railroads  at  a  price  fixed  on 
the  market  value  of  the  securities 
during  the  last  three  or  five  years, 
or  upon  their  value  as  found  by  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission 
which  is  now  valuing  these  prop- 
erties under  the  laws  of  Congress 
and  upon  which  about  $20,000,000 
have  already  been  expended.  Whether 
we  believe  in  government  ownership 
or  not  any  sane  man  must  concede 
that  such  a  course  would  have  been 
far  less  dangerous  than  the  proposi- 
tion he  has  made.  The  whole  scheme 
is  fraught  with  such  possible  calam- 
ity and  permeated  with  such  gross 
injustice  to  the  American  taxpayer 
that  it  is  startling  to  contemplate 
and  we  are  delighted  to  learn  that 
Senator  Johnson  of  California,  Cum- 
mins of  Iowa  and  others  do  not  pro- 
pose to  sit  silent  and  permit  this 
abomination  to  be  enacted  into  law 
without  a   protest. 


SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY  9,  1918. 

THE  BOLDEST  RAID  YET 
AUTHORIZED. 

Press  reports  state  that  a  majority 
of  the  Senate  Committee  has  reported 
the  railroad  bill  to  the  Senate  pro- 
viding that  the  compensation  of  the 
railroads  taken  over  by  the  govern- 
ment shall  be  the  average  of  the  net 
revenues  for  the  last  three  years. 

This  will  provide  the  highest  com- 
pensation that  the  railroads  have  ever 
received  from  the  American  people 
during  a  similar  period  of  time.  It 
is  vehemently  said  by  the  President 
and  other  responsible  administrative 
officers  that  the  war  should  not  be 
made  a  pretext  for  acquiring  profit; 
that  great  corporations  should  not 
be  permitted  to  make  money  out  of 
the  war.  Yet  this  administration  bill 
guarantees  to  the  railroads  a  larger 
return  by  far  than  they  have  ever 
received  during  a  similar  period  in 
times  of  peace,  and  agrees  that  in 
the  event  the  revenues  of  these  roads, 
because  of  any  industrial  condition, 
do  not  meet  this  guarantee  that 
there  shall  be  money  taken  out  of  the 
public  treasury  to  m"^ke  it  up  to 
them.  That  is,  it  removes  the  great 
railways  of  this  country  from  any 
danger  of  industrial  depression  that 
may  come  during  the  pejiiod  of  the 
war,  and  singles  these  corporations 
out  for  special  favor.  It  not  only, 
guarantees  that  the  property  shall 
be  maintained  in  first  class  condition 
at  the  government's  expense;  that  ex- 
tensions needed  will  be  made  at  the 
government's  expense;  but  that  a  de- 
preciation fund  shall  be  provided  out 
of  the  earnings  before  the  net  profits 
are  determined. 

That  is,  these  railway  corporations 
are  protected  from  any  loss  of  any 
kind,  pending  the  war  and  are  guar- 
anteed a  higher  return  than  they 
ever  received  prior  to  the  war. ' 

But  the  most  offensive  feature  of 
the  bill  is  that  all  of  the  railroads 
are  not  taken  over.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  only  the  railroads  in  which  the 
Wall  Street  speculators  are  interested 
wil  receive  the  benefit  of  any  such  • 
guaranties.  The  small  roads  that 
are  owned  by  private  investors  or 
small  banks  in  different  sections  of 
the  country,  like  the  Salina  Northern. 


43 


the  Anthony  &  Northern  and  a  hun- 
dred similar  small  railways  that  have 
been  constructed  in  opposition  to  the 
great  existing,  dominating,  monopo- 
lizing lines  are  left  out.  No  guar- 
anty is  given  them. 

The  investors  in  these  small  rail- 
ways not  only  receive  no  guaranty 
from  the  government,  but  the  testi- 
mony before  the  committee  in  Wash- 
ington demonstrates  that  many  of 
them  are  being  gravely  injured  by 
the  government  operation,  and  the 
revenue  which  they  were  able  to  ob- 
tain by  traffic  arrangements  which 
they  had  entered  into  with  compet- 
ing lines  before  the  government  took 
over  the  big  systems  is  being  taken 
from  them. 

It  is  the  boldest  raid  that  has  ever 
been  made  on  the  public  treasury  by 
any  organization  of  Wall  Street  spec- 
ulators, and  it  guarantees  to  these 
big  railroads,  after  all  interest  on 
bonds,  taxes  and  dividends  on  pre- 
ferred stock  is  paid,  a  return  of  from 
6  to  25  per  cent  net  upon  their  capi- 
tal stock,  nine-tenths  of  which  repre- 
sents not  a  dollar  of  invested  capital. 

Never  before  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States  would  the  Wall  Street 
financiers  have  had  the  nerve  to  sug- 
gest such  a  piece  of  legislation;  but 
under  the  stress  of  war  conditions 
they  think  that  now  is  the  time  for 
them  to -get  their  hands  into  the  pub- 
lic treasury,  and  be  guaranteed  by 
the  government  against  any  of  the  in- 
dustrial or  financial  exigencies  that 
may  grow  out  of  the  war.  Other 
business  may  fail.  Other  concerns 
that  produce  the  necessities  of  life 
or  the  commodities  that  the  people 
must  have  must  take  their  chances. 
They  get  no  guaranty  from  the  public 
treasury.  But  the  big  railroads  re- 
eardless  of  industrial  condition  may 
levy  a  tribute  upon  the  people  to 
make  good  their  enormous  profits. 

~  FRIDAY,  FEBRUARY  15^Ydis. 


GIVE      US      HONEST      AND      EF- 
FICIENT ADMINISTRATION. 

A  recent  issue  of  the  Kansas  City 
Star  had  a  very  creditable  editorial 
upon  the  bill  which  the  President  has 
had  introduced  in  Congress  conferring 
upon  him  autocratic  and  dictatorial 
powers,  practically  authorizing  him 
to-  take  charge   and  run   the   govern- 


ment as  he  pleases  regardless  of  the 
statutes  or  any  of  the  co-ordinate 
branches. 

It  is  the  first  time  in  American 
history  that  the  president  of  the 
United  States  has  sought  to  set  aside 
all  constitutional  limitations  as  a  war 
measure.  When  the  life  of  this 
nation  was  threatened,  with  open  re- 
bellion, with  the  capital  permeated 
with  treason  and  surrounded  by  re- 
bellious territory,  President  Lincoln 
took  up  the  administration  of  affairs, 
but  never  dreamed  of  asking  for  any- 
thing like  the  authority  which  has  al- 
ready been  conferred  on  President 
Wilson. 

A  week  rarely  passed  that  Con- 
gress is  not  asked  to  confer  some 
additional  power  on  the  president. 
Already  he  has  been  given  too  much, 
as  has  forcibly  been  demonstrated  by 
the  mismanagement  of  the  fuel  ad- 
ministration as  well  as  the  food  ad- 
ministration. 

If  no  director  of  fuel  had  been  ap- 
pointed, the  American  people  would 
have  suffereded  far  less  during  the 
winter  than  they  have.  Mr.  Garfield's 
orders  largely  precipitated  the  con- 
gestion and  increased  the  difficulties 
rather  than  relieved  them. 

Doubtless  the  unfortunate  blunders 
made  some  kind  of  curtailment  neces- 
sary when  the  suffering  became 
acute.  However,  the  orders* for  cur- 
tailment were  ridiculous.  Thousands 
and  thousands  of  men  have  had  their 
business  seriously  interfered  with 
when  it  did  not  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree conserve  the  coal  supply. 

Fortunately,  nature  has  relieved 
the  country  from  the  calamity  of 
the  fuel  administration;  but  not  so 
with  the  food  administration.  The 
cattle  feeders  of  the  nation  have  had 
their  business  this  year  practically 
ruined.  Millions  of  dollars  have  been 
lost  by  them  through  the  unwise  and 
arbitrary  action  of  Mr.  Hoover. 

The  wheat  producer  has  been  in- 
jured more  than  any  other  of  our 
agricultural  producers,  and  the  con- 
sumer has  not  been  benefitted.  He 
is  continually  being  harassed  with  im- 
practical and  useless  orders. 

The  ship-building  program  has 
been  a  farce.  It  cannot  be  said  to 
have  broken  down,  because  it  never 
was  successfully  started.  It  has  been 
the  rendezvous  for  political   grafters 


44 


from  the  beginning.  Yet  the  Presi- 
dent in  the  face  of  these  deplorable 
failures,  is  asking  for  still  more 
power  as  corrective   legislation. 

What  the  country  now  demands  is 
the  proper  exercise  of  the  power  that 
he  has,  the  efficient  administration  of 
the  great  departments  of  the  govern- 
ment that  are  under  his  charge,  and 
not  the  vehement  demand  for  an  in- 
crease in  autocratic  power  and 
further  encroachments  by  the  execu- 
tive upon  our  legislative  institutions. 
Give  the  people  efficient  and  honest 
administration  and  they  will  stand 
for  any  amount  of  sacrifice  necessary 
for  the  honor  and  welfare  of  the 
nation. 

•SATURDAY^FEBRUARY   16,   1918. 

AN    UNFORTUNATE    SITUATION. 

We  are  glad  to  know  that  Senator 
Martin,  Democratic  leader  of  the  sen- 
ate, refused  to  introduce  the  bill 
which  if  it  passes  will  make  an  elec- 
tive dictator  out  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States  and  which  would 
Mexicanize  this  republic.  It  would 
confer  upon  President  Wilson  greater 
power  than  Diaz  ever  exercised  in 
Mexico  and  reduce  the  legislative 
branch  of  our  government  to  still 
further   impotency. 

Complaint  is  frequently  made  that 
men  of  commanding  strength  and 
ability  no  longer  seek  places  in  the 
House  of  Representatives.  This,  un- 
fortunately, is  true.  The  reduction 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  to 
that  of  merely  a  ratifying  body,  mak- 
ing it  as  impotent  as  the  Mexican 
congress  or  the  British  House  of 
Lords,  is  more  than  anything  else 
responsible  for  the  mediocre  char- 
acter of  so  many  of  our  members  of 
Congress. 

It  is  surprising  that  in  the  Fifth 
C<mgressional  district  men  of  intel- 
lectual strength  and  standing  do  not 
now  aspire  to  Congress.  When  it  is 
remembered  that  this  district  has 
been  represented  by  such  men  as 
William  A.  Phillips,  John  A.  Ander- 
son, and  W.  A.  Calderhead,  men 
who  took  high  rank  in  the  councils 
of  the  nation,  it  is  surprising  that  a 
me<Kocre  nonentity  like  the  present 
member  should  have  practically  an 
open  field  for  re-election. 

Is   it  because  men   of  intellect  and 


spirit  no  longer  see  an  opportunity 
for  service  in  the  House?  Is  it  be- 
cause that  body  no  longer  stands 
for  achievement,  and  for  the  develop- 
ment of  important  governmental  pol- 
icies that  it  is  no  longer  a  House 
filled  with  able  representatives  of  the 
people  who  formulate  the  laws  of  the 
nation,  as  in  the  days  of  Clay,  Col- 
fax, Reed,  McKinley  and  other  great 
leaders. 

If  so,  it  is  time  that  the  legisla- 
tive branch  of  the  government  pro- 
tect itself,  by  asserting  some  inde- 
pendent thought,  and  formulating 
some  constructive  policies  of  govern- 
ment. It  is  for  Congress  to  deter- 
mine the  policies  of  the  government 
and  for  the  executive  to  execute 
them.  When  the  legislative  branch 
abandons  its  constitutional  rights  and 
prerogatives  and  turns  them  over  to 
the  executive  as  the  prices  of  politi- 
cal patronage  and  plunder,  this  re- 
public then  begins  the  first  stage  of 
decline.  It  has  been  the  history  of 
every  free  government  from  the  be- 
ginning of  time  that  when  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  people  sacrifice 
their  constitutional  rights,  the 
strength  and  virility  of  the  republic 
is  declining,  and  the  usurpation  of 
authority  by  the  executive  begins. 


TUESDAY,  FEBRUARY  19,  1918. 

SHOULD  BE  LESS  RESPECTABLE 
AND  MORE  DANGEROUS. 

The  Hog  Island  shipbuilding  plant 
scandal  has  at  last  attracted  the 
attention  of  Mr.  Wilson.  The  reck- 
less waste  of  public  money,  graft, 
and  plunder  that  have  run  rampant 
in  the  affairs  of  this  government  for 
the  last  six  or  eight  months  has  here- 
tofore been  ignored. 

Some  distinguished  dollar  a.  year 
"patriots"  like  Vanderlip  and  other 
captains  of  high  finance,  such  as 
Rockefeller  of  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany, Stillman  of  the  City  National 
Bank,  Vail  of  the  American  Tele- 
graph and  Telephone  Company,  and 
a  number  of  others  early  in  the  war 
organized  the  International  Ship- 
building Corporation.  They  were  not 
shipbuilders.  They  were  financiers. 
There  was  then  organized  subsidiary 
corporations  that  were  to  do  the 
work.  These  patriots  put  no  money 
in    the    enterprise.      The    government 


45 


furnished  all  of  it,  even  paying  the 
salaries  of  the  corporation  officers. 
It  purchased  the  land  upon  which  the 
plaUt  was  to  be  erected,  paying-  an 
army  officer  $2,000  an  acre  for  it, 
though  a  short  time  before  he  had 
offered  it  to  the  government  for 
$1,000.  It  has  been  assessed  at  $100 
per  acre.  This  army  officer  received 
one  million  dollars  for  land  that  was 
practically  worthless.  The  govern- 
ment provided  the  men  and  the  me- 
chanics to  do  all  the  work.  The  cor- 
poration did  not  invest  a  dollar  nor 
assume  any  risks;  yet  it  was  to  be 
paid  between  six  and  seven  million 
dollars  out  of  the  public  treasury. 

This  scheme  was  denounced  and 
criticised  weeks  ago — indeed  months 
ago — ^but  it  attracted  no  attention. 
Finally  the  twenty-one  millions  of 
dollars  appropriated  for  the  construc- 
tion of  this  ship  building  yard  ran 
out  and  twenty-one  millions  more 
were  demanded.  Congress  when 
called  on  for  the  deficiency  appro- 
priation began  to  inquire  what  had 
become  of  the  money  already  ap- 
propriated, and  a  congressional  in- 
vestigation has  developed  another  of 
the  nauseating  scandals  which  have 
been  so  numerous  in  Mr.  Wilson's 
administration  since  the  war  began. 

It  is  so  offensive  and  the  names  of 
80  many  of  the  dollar  "patriots" 
are  connected  with  it  that  the  Presi- 
dent feels  that  it  needs  some  of  his 
attention.  It  is  no  worse  than  hun- 
dreds of  similar  instances,  except 
that  it  is  of  greater  magnitude.  It 
is  no  more  criminal  than  the  James- 
town loot,  the  fire  arms  contract,  the 
machine  gun  contract,  the  woolen 
cloth  scandal,  the  shoe  contracts,  the 
aluminum  contracts  and  many  others 
too  numerous  to  mention. 

It  is  simply  a  continuation  of  the 
same  policy  that  was  pursued  in 
the  construction  of  cantonments,  the 
building  of  wooden  ships,  the  supply- 
ing of  equipment  to  the  army.  Al- 
most every  article  used  in  our  mili- 
tary establishment  is  involved  in 
some   of  these   scandals. 

It  is  now  hoped  that  the  Depart- 
ment of  Justice  will  prosecute  with 
some  vigor  the  thieves  who  have  been 
plundering  and  looting  the  public 
treasury  so  thoroughly  during  recent 
months.  If  Mr.  Wilson  will  follow 
the  example  of  McKinley  and  Roose- 


velt and  make  corruption  in  public 
life  less  respectable  and  more  dan- 
gerous he  will  have  our  hearty  sup- 
port in  such  a  righteous  fight. 

THU^SDAYJEBgUARY   21,  **1918. 

MUST  CONQUER  THE  SUB- 
MARINE. 

There  is  a  frantic  demand  through- 
out the  nation,  for  the  production  of 
ships,  and  they  cite  the  frightful  re- 
sults of  the  submarine  warfare  in 
sinking  two  tons  of  shipping  to  every 
one  built  by  the  Americans  and  Eng- 
lish last  year.  If  we  are  correctly 
informed  by  the  press  dispatches,  six 
million  tons  of  shipping  were  sent  to 
the  bottom  of  the  seas  last  year  by 
German  submarines,  while  the  con- 
struction in  both  England  and  the 
United  States  has  been  less  than 
three  million  tons.  If  we  increase  the 
production  of  ships  what  assurance 
have  we  that  the  Germans  will  not 
increase  their  destruction? 

Not  only  were  six  million  tons  of 
shipping  sunk  last  year  but  millions 
of  tons  of  food  products  went  with 
them.  Last  month,  we  are  advised, 
seven  million  bushels  of  wheat  were 
sunk.  The  American  people  are 
called  upon  to  deny  themselves  the 
comforts  of  life,  to  banish  from  their 
homes  the  meat  they  have  been  ac- 
customed to  live  upon,  in  order  that 
we  may  help  our  allies  in  Europe, 
and  this  food  which  we  deny  our- 
selves does  not  reach  the  allies,  but 
does  reach  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 

This  is  a  startling  demonstration 
that  what  the  allies  need  now  is  more 
effective  means  of  combating  the  sub- 
marine. To  build  more  ships  seems 
to  be  a  vain  effort  to  gorge  this  de- 
structive monster  with  more  ships 
than  he  can  consume  instead  of  de- 
stroying the  monster;  and  if  the  navy 
department,  or  the  shipping  corpora- 
tion, or  the  army  will  concentrate 
their  energies  upon  and  invite  the 
best  thought  of  the  world  to  solve  the 
problem  as  to  how  the  submarine  is 
to  be  defeated  instead  of  making  a 
frantic  effort  to  build  more  ships 
than  the  Germans  can  sink,  we  will 
more  surely  approach  the  end  of  the 
war  and  ultimate  victory. 


46 


MONDAY,  MARCH  11,  1918. 

HAVE  WE  BEEN  RIGHT? 

We  are  engaged  in  the  most  terri- 
ble military  conflict  in  the  history 
of  the  human  race.  The  resources  of 
the  American  people  are  going  to  be 
tested  to  the  limit.  It  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  welfare  of  this 
country  that  the  masses  of  the  people 
who  must  bear  the  tremendous  bur- 
dens of  this  war,  both  in  the  sacri- 
fice of  earnings  and  the  shedding  of 
blood,  shall  feel  that  they  are  being 
fairly  treated  by  their  government. 
No  free  government  can  live  without 
the  hearty  and  loyal  support  of  the 
great  body  of  the  people. 

The  profits  of  some  of  the  great 
industrial  enterprises,  chargeable  di- 
rectly to  the  war,  have  been  compiled 
from  their  annual  reports.  The  fol- 
lowing table  shows  the  average 
profits  of  each  of  these  concerns  for 
five  years  before  the  war,  embracing 
the  years  1911  to  1915  inclusive,  and 
for  the  years  1916  and  1917.  The 
vast  increases  in  their  profits  directly 
traceable  to  the  war  are  apparent. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  these 
are  net  profits  after  all  excess  war 
taxes  are  deducted.  What  burden 
are  war  taxes  to  these  industries? 
The  packers  after  paying  their  excess 
war  tax  have  still  increased  their 
profits   from    three    to    five    hundred 


per  cent  over  those  of  peaceful  times. 
All  of  these  concerns  could  be  tax-ed 

80  per  cent  of  the  excess  war  p^jpfits 
and  still  make  from  50  to  500Tf)er 
cent  more  than  during  times  of  peace. 
We  ask  every  reader  of  the  Journal 
to  examine  carefully  this  lable. 

These  concerns  deal  in  food,  cloth- 
ing, domestic  necessities  and  war  ma- 
terials. Their  profits  are  enormous — 
made  so  largely  by  charging  the  peo- 
ple and  the  government  extortionate 
prices. 

Mr.  Wilson's  administration  has 
been  given  unlimited  power  by  Con- 
gress to  correct  such  abuses  as  this 
table  so  forcibly  illustrates. 

Will  the  people  have  confidence  in 
an  administration  that  having  been 
given  the  power  to  stop,  not  only  per- 
mits, but  apparently  justifies  such 
shameless  exploitations  of  the  re- 
sources of  the  nation.  Is  it  not  more 
criminal,  or  treasonable,  if  you 
please,  to  take  advantage  of  the  con- 
ditions brought  about  by  this  terrible 
war  to  charge  the  people  extortionate 
prices  for  the  necessities  of  life  and 
thereby  amass  such  fabulous  fortunes 
than  to  oppose  the  draft  or  steal  a 
pair  of  shoes? 

For  months  we  have  been  protest- 
ing against  the  neglect,  incompetence 
and  corruption  that  has  resulted  not 
only  in  permitting  these  grave  abuses, 
but  others  equally  infamous.  Have 
we  been   right? 


NET  EARNINGS  OR  PROFITS. 

Average  5  years 

1911  to  1915  1916  1917 

Armour  &  Co.   (packers) $  6,559,960  $  20,100,000  $  30,628,156 

Morris  &  Co.  (packers) 1,858,697  3,632,213  10,358,489 

Swift  &  Co.   (packers) 9,435,000  20,465,000  34,650,000 

American  Can  Co 4,998,079  7,962,982  21,995,042 

American  Steel  Foundries  Co....        220,252  3,418,057  8,718,296 

American  Sugar  Refining  Co.... ^     4,012,966  9,756,379  10,055,291 

American  Woolen  Co 2,428,735  5,863,819  6,844,146 

Bethlehem  Steel  Corporation 6,515,631  43,593,968  52,651,431 

Brown  Shoe  Co 482,225a  1,467,757  2,414,088 

Central  Leather  Co 4,384,446  15,489,201  16,243,062 

Cuban-American    Sugar    Co 1,905,947  8,235,113  10,821,960 

Lackawanna  Steel  Co 920,833  12,218,234  16,106,976 

United  States  Steel  Corp'n 58,017,583  271,531,730  331,668,131 

United  Fruit  Co 4,619,912  11,943,151  17,592,391 

aAverage  for  three  years. 


47 


MONDAY,   MARCH   18,   1918. 

t,   "whUt  are  you  for?" 

KA  few  days  since  a  friend  said  that 
BI  read  our  editorials  carefully  and 
thought  they  were  strong  and  sound. 
"But,"  he  added,  "while  they  forcibly 
show  what  you  are  against,  they  do 
not  so  clearly  state  what  you  are 
for." 

To  satisfy  this  and  other  inquiring 
friends,  we  will  repeat  that  first,  and 
above  all  else,  we  favor  economy  in 
public  expenditure  and  honesty  and 
efficiency  in  the  public  service.  These 
we  regard  as  of  the  greatest  import- 
ance to  the  administration  of  any  gov- 
ernment. They  are  issues  of  the  first 
magnitude  and  are  far  more  essential 
in  times  of  war,  when  tremendous 
sacrifices  are  demanded  of  the  people, 
than  in  times  of  peace. 

In  the  management  of  our  national 
affairs,  therefore,  we  favor  the  sub- 
stitution of  honesty  for  dishonesty, 
of  competency  for  incompetency  and 
of  patriotic  devotion  for  intrigue  and 
graft. 

We  have  been  of  the  opinion  that 
when  the  European  war  began,  if  the 
government  of  the  United  States  had 
>  been  in  the  hands  of  far-sighted 
statesmen  of  courage,  sagacity  and 
determination,  we  not  only  would 
have  kept  out  of  the  war  ourselves, 
but  greatly  ameliorated  its  European 
horrors.  Unfortunately,  for  us  and 
mankind  such  was  not  the  case,  and 
now  we  must  deal  with  the  things 
that  are  and  not  those  that  might 
have  been. 

We,  therefore,  hold  that  it  is  the 
^duty  of  every  American  citizen  to  do 
his  best  for  the  prosecution  of  the 
war  to  a  successful  conclusion.  Our 
diers  in  camp  and  field  must  be 
u  )vided  with  every  military  facility 
within  the  reach  of  human  genius 
ai,d  every  comfort  that  love  and  de- 
votion can  provide.  This,  we  not 
only  owe  them  as  a  profound  ooliga- 
tion,  but  is  necessary  that  ultimately 
peace  based  upon  justice  and  right- 
eousness shall  prevail  throughout  the 
nations   of   the   earth. 

When  the  time  for  the  discussion  of 
peace  comes,  the  first  requirement  in 
a  treaty  should  be  disarmament  on 
both  land  and  sea.     An  international 


\  compact  of  the  great  nations  should 


be  formed;  and  it  should  be  stipu- 
lated, with  ample  provision  for  its 
enforcement,  that  no  nation  shall 
maintain  a  standing  army  or  possess 
military  equipment  or  the  facilities 
for  manufacturing  of  such  in  excess 
of  the  requirements  necessary  to  pre- 
serve domestic  order:  That  the  great 
naval  armaments  should  be  reduced 
in  size  so  there  would  remain  only 
a  sufficient  number  of  armed  vessels 
properly  to  police  the  seas  and  pre- 
vent pira'cy. 

For  a  nation  like  Germany  to 
maintain  a  military  establishment 
which  practically  makes  the  empire 
an  armed  camp  with  millions  of 
soldiers  ready  for  battle  on.  a  week's 
notice  is  a  menace  to  the  welfare  of 
the  human  race. 

The  freedom  of  the  seas  also  is  as 
essential  as  the  freedom  of  the  land. 
A  navy  which  overshadows  those  of 
all  competing  nations  is  dangerous 
to  the  commerce  of  the  world.  Such 
armaments  are  an  excessive  burden 
upon  the  resources  of  the  human 
race  and  stand  as  a  menace  to  the 
peace    and    happiness    of    mankind. 

The  national  boundaries  of  Euro» 
pean  countries  are  matters  that  affect 
the  people  immediately  concerned  and 
not  Us  and  should  be  settled  by  them. 

Whether  Great  Britain,  Italy, 
France,  Belgium,  Germany  or  Rus- 
sia shall  have  a  monarchial,  republi- 
can or  socialistic  form  of  govern- 
ment is  for  the  people  of  these 
countries  to  determine  and  not  for 
us.  What  we  are  interested  in  is 
that  whatever  form  of  government 
they  may  choose  to  live  under  shall 
not  have  the  power  or  be  permitted 
to  endanger  the  peace  of  the  world, 
or  impose  unjust  burdens  upon  other 
peoples. 

The  woeful  failure  of  the  war  de- 
partment to  meet  the  tremendous  re- 
sponsibilities imposed  upon  it  by  the 
war,  and  the  refusal  of  the  Presi- 
dent to  appoint  a  secretary  of  that 
department  capable  of  managing  it 
efficiently  make  absolutely  necessary 
the  creation  by  Congress  of  a  war 
council  composed  of  men  who  shall 
devote  their  entire  time  to  the  work 
of  the  administration  of  the  vast 
agencies   of  the  war. 

The  revenue  bill  should  be  amended 
this   year   so   as   to   tax   excess   war 


48 


profits  not  less  than  80  per  cent, 
and  if  need  be,  later  this  should  be 
increased   to   90   per   cent. 

A  statute  should  be  enacted  mak- 
ing it  a  felony  for  any  public  officer 
or  governmental  agent,  directly  or  in- 
ilirectly,  to  profit  financially  by  any 
contract  over  which  he  has  super- 
vision. 

As  part  of  the  military  expendi- 
tures of  the  United  States  reservoirs 
should  be  located  and  constructed  on 
the  great  plain  between  the  foot  hills 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  98th 
meridian  so  as  to  impound  the  run- 
off waters  and  hold  them  back  until 
the  growing  seasons  when  they  can 
be  used  for  agricultural  purposes. 
This  would  lessen  the  destruction  by 
floods  and  ameliorate  the  disaster  by 
drouth. 

Unless  officers  can  be  appointed  to 
control  the  food  and  fuel  administra- 
tions in  the  interests  of  the  public 
and  protect  the  producers  from  ex- 
tortion, the  laws  creating  these 
agencies  should  be  repealed.  To  ap- 
point men  to  positions  of  great  power 
who  are  under  the  control  of  great 
industrial  corporations  like  the  sugar 
trust,  the  packers'  combination,  and 
coal  barons,  is  a  menace  to  the  wel- 
fare of  the  nation. 

The  plan  by  which  the  present  ad- 
ministration has  taken  over  the  rail- 
roads is  the  worst  that  could  have 
been  devised.  It  has  resulted  in  both 
insufficient  and  inefficient  service  and 
in  the  increasing  of  rates  and  charges 
that  will  result  in  imposing  a  tre- 
mendous financial  burden  upon  the 
people. 

It  guarantees  to  the  Wall  Street 
owners  of  the  great  railway  systems 
enormous  returns  upon  their  holdings 
of  watered  stocks,  and  taxes  millions 
of  the  common  people  who  live 
meagerly  under  the  stress  of  war 
times  to  pay  these  conscienceless 
stock  gamblers  and  speculators  fabu- 
lous returns  on  securities  that  do  not 
represent  the  investment  of  a  single 
dollar  in  transportation  facilities. 

The  plan  adopted  by  the  President 
has  practically  abolished  the  Inter- 
state Commerce  Commission  and  the 
state  railway  commissions  and  has 
placed    in    the    hands    of    a    political 


appointee,  the  secretary  of  the  treaa 
ury,  the  most  tremendous  power  ov(. 
the  commerce  of  a  people   ever  heU 
by  any  individual   in   the  history 
civilized  government.   He  may  change 
rates  or  the  relation  of  rates  without 
notice    or    hearing.      He    has    in   hi» 
hands   four   billion   dollars   of   tax 
collected  for   transportation,   that 
can  spend  at  will.    He  can  increase 
decrease   the   wages   of   two   milli 
of  employees  and  pay  them  any  si 
he  desires  without  restraint   of 
or  law.     No  system  could  have 
devised  more  dangerous. 

Instead  of  this  there  ought  to  h; 
been^  organized  a  federal  corporate 
with  a  board  of  directors  appoin 
by  the  President,  holding  office  for 
long  term  of  years  and  removab] 
only  for  cause.  The  stock  of  t! 
corporation  should  be  owned  by  tl 
people.  It  should  have  acquired  tl 
railroads  at  a  fair  market  value  ai 
operated  them  as  a  unified  systei 
All  the  regulatory  authority,  st* 
and  national  should  have  been  p 
served.  Such  a  plan  would  have  al 
the  advantages  of  government  own^ 
ship  and  none  of  its  dangers, 
would  have  all  of  the  flexibility 
private  ownership  and  none  of  i 
weaknesses  and  injustices. 

We  are  strongly  in  favor  of  a 
publican    form    of    government, 
therefore      most      earnestly      prot 
against  the  abdication  by  Congress 
the    law-making   functions    confem 
upon   it  by  the  federal   constituti 
We    believe    the    law-making    poWj 
should   be  vested   in   the  represen' 
tives   of   the    people    and    not   in 
elective  dictator. 

We  trust  these  declarations  are  sal 
factory  to  our  inquiring  friend 
there  are  any  other  questions  thai 
he  or  any  others  desire  to  ask,  we 
shall  be  pleased  to  further  elaborate 
our  views  upon  any  matters  of  pub- 
lic  concern. 

We  have  nothing  to  conceal.  We 
do  not  intend  to  stand  for  one  plat- 
form today  and  repudiate  it  tomor- 
row. We  do  not  have  one  platform 
to  get  in  on  and  another  to  live  by 
after  we  are  in. 


JOSEPH  L.  BRISTOW. 


I 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
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iViAY     1  1947 


ma:  4  'Sss 


LD  21-1007»-12,'46(A2012sl6)4120 


Pamphlet         ^ 
Binder 
Gaylord  Bros..  Inc.  ■ 
Stockton,  Calif. 
T.M.  Reg.  U.S.  Pat.  Off 


U   C,  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


